Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington and His Orchestra – Concert In The Virgin Islands (1965/2011)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 37:21 minutes | 1,39 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino – Warner Records

This lush, Caribbean-themed collection created a new standard for big band music. The recording includes four original compositions representing the “Virgin Island Suite” and new readings of classics from Ellington’s extensive repertoire. The pieces on this set are as impressive as the stellar line up of musicians including Cat Anderson, Jimmy Hamilton, Billy Strayhorn, among others. The inspired performances and textured nuances are captured with the highest fidelity.

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Duke Ellington and His Orchestra – A Drum Is a Woman (1957)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 47:55 minutes | 1,07 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Columbia – Legacy

Duke Ellington’s fanciful tale of Carribee Joe and his drum, which evolved into a woman known as Madam Zajj (and a very abstract telling of the evolution of jazz) became a television special in the late ’50s but does not translate all that well to record. Dominated by vocals and narration, the music often plays a backseat to the story, which is worth hearing twice at the most. – Scott Yanow

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Duke Ellington and His Orchestra – …And His Mother Called Him Bill (1968/2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 44:28 minutes | 1,63 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Okeh

When Billy Strayhorn died of cancer in 1967, Duke Ellington was devastated. His closest friend and arranger had left his life full of music and memories. As a tribute, Ellington and his orchestra almost immediately began recording a tribute to Strayhorn, using the late arranger’s own compositions and charts. The album features well-known and previously unrecorded Strayhorn tunes that showcased his range, versatility, and, above all, the quality that Ellington admired him most for: his sensitivity to all of the timbral, tonal, and color possibilities an orchestra could bring to a piece of music. The set opens with a vehicle for Johnny Hodges called “Snibor,” written in 1949. A loose blues tune, its intervals showcase Hodges against a stinging I-IV-V backdrop and turnaround, with a sweeping set of colors in the brass section before Cootie Williams takes a break and hands it back to Hodges to take out. The melancholy “Blood Count” was written in 1967 for the band’s Carnegie Hall concert. It proved to be his final composition and chart. Hodges again gets the call and blows deep, low, and full of sadness and even anger. The music is moody, poignant, and full of poise, expressing a wide range of feelings as memories from different periods in the composers’ and bandleaders’ collective careers. Given all the works Strayhorn composed, this one — with its muted trumpet section set in fours against Hodges’ blues wailing — is both wistful and chilling. Also included here is a remake of 1951’s “Rock Skippin’ at the Blue Note,” in a spicy, funky version with a shimmering cymbal ride from Sam Woodyard and a punched up, bleating Cootie Williams solo as well as one from Jimmy Hamilton on clarinet, smoothing out the harmonic edges of the brass section (which features a ringing break from John Sanders). In cut time, the tune shuffles in the groove with Ellington accenting on every eight as the brass and reeds mix it up joyously. There are two versions of “Lotus Blossom.” Ellington claimed it was the piece Strayhorn most liked to hear him play. The LP version is a quiet, restrained, meditative rendition played solo by Ellington, with the most subtle and yet emotional nuances he ever presented on a recording as a pianist. Finally, closing the album is a bonus track, a trio version played in a whispering tone with only baritone saxophonist Harry Carney and bassist Aaron Bell accompanying Ellington. The piece was supposedly recorded as the band was packing up to leave. Its informality and soulful verve feel like they are an afterthought, an unwillingness to completely let go, a eulogy whose final words are questions, elegantly stated and met with only the echo of their last vibrations ringing in an empty room, full of wondering, longing, and helplessness, but above all the point of the questions themselves: “Is this enough?” or “Can there ever be enough to pay an adequate tribute to this man?” They are interesting questions, because only five years later we would all be saying the same thing about Ellington. For a man who issued well over 300 albums, this set is among his most profoundly felt and very finest recorded moments. – Thom Jurek

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Duke Ellington And His Orchestra – The Symphonic Ellington (1963/2011)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 41:29 minutes | 1,56 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino – Warner Records

Ellington’s revolutionizing vision of incorporating a symphony orchestra in his work unfolds with The Symphonic Ellington. This breathtaking recording is full of colorful arrangements and inspired solos. “Night Creatures,” the opening three part movement features Ellington’s effort to “make the symphony swing.” The ingenious album is a true highlight in Duke Ellington’s long established career.

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Duke Ellington & His Orchestra – The Popular Duke Ellington (1966/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 42:14 minutes | 1,45 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RCA – Legacy

The Popular Duke Ellington is a studio album by American pianist, composer and bandleader Duke Ellington featuring many of the tunes associated with his orchestra rerecorded in 1966 and released on the RCA label in 1966.

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Duke Ellington And His Orchestra – Midnight in Paris (1962/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/352,8 kHz | Time – 42:17 minutes | 2,36 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © High Definition Tape Transfers

Midnight in Paris is an album by American pianist, composer and bandleader Duke Ellington recorded in 1962 for the Columbia label. The album features performances of compositions inspired by or associated with Paris.

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Duke Ellington & His Orchestra – Ellington Indigos (1958/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 35:55 minutes | 1,23 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Columbia Records

Indigos is a seminal Jazz album by big band superstar Duke Ellington, originally released in 1958. Ellington chose a set of easy listening ballads to be performed by his ace Big Band, putting less emphasis on the uptempo and danceable Swing the group was revered for.

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Duke Ellington – Uppsala 1971 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:19:08 minutes | 1,57 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Storyville Records

In Duke Ellington’s tape collection (“The Stockpile”) were several tapes with concert recordings of the band’s performances on tour. It was a great delight to find a tape box marked “Ellington – Uppsala 9-11-71” in the collection, containing a tape with a concert at the university town of Uppsala, Sweden on Nov. 9th 1971. The second of two concerts in Uppsala that day.

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Duke Ellington – The Duke: Historically Speaking (1956/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 39:16 minutes | 503 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Bethlehem Records

Awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1966, Duke Ellington called his music “American music” rather than jazz, and liked to describe those who impressed him as “beyond” category. He remains one of the most influential figures in jazz, if not in all American music and is widely considered one of the 20th century’s best composers and band leaders. Ellington’s reputation has increased since his death in 1974, with thematic repackagings of his signature music often becoming best sellers. Posthumous recognition of his work include a special award citation from the Pulitzer Prize Board. This 1956 session features Ellington and 14 sidemen performing updated recordings of some of the best from Ellington’s career going back to 1926.

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Duke Ellington – Take the A Train (Remastered) (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 39:23 minutes | 1,50 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © 2xHD – Storyville Records

This expertly remastered digital release sees the legendary Duke Ellington and his band present a selection of iconic numbers. Opening with the famous Take the “A” Train, this album sees these renowned musicians perform Satin Doll, New World a-Comin and five other tracks, all of which show Ellington at the top of his game.

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Duke Ellington – Side By Side (1959/2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 45:59 minutes | 918 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Verve Reissues

Although it is billed as a Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges album, Side by Side is a 1959 album mostly under the leadership of Johnny Hodges, Duke Ellington’s alto saxophonist for many years. Ellington only appears on three of this album’s tracks. The album places Hodges at the fore, backing him with piano by Ellington or Billy Strayhorn and providing other accompaniment by well-known jazz figures like Ben Webster, Roy Eldridge, Harry “Sweets” Edison and Jo Jones. The album, a follow-up to the popular Back to Back: Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges Play the Blues, has remained perpetually in print.

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Duke Ellington – Recollections of the Big Band Era (1963/2011)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 35:21 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino Atlantic

Featuring familiar titles such as: “Ciribiribin,” and “Auld Lang Syne”, this one-of-a-kind set is beautifully remastered and presented in pristine HD quality. This tribute to the big pop-orchestra bands of Ellington’s heyday stands on its own.

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Duke Ellington – In Coventry, 1966 (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:05:35 minutes | 724 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Storyville Records

During the year of 1966 Duke Ellington was touring Europe. Duke Ellington’s sacred concerts had many incarnations, more than the three on the commercial records: The First (1965), The Second (1968) and The Third (1973). At concerts Ellington often made changes in the proceedings – left out some numbers, and played others, and altered the succession of numbers played. This was evidenced at Coventry Cathedral on a winter’s Monday, February 21st 1966. The Coventry concert had its centerpiece in “In The Beginning God”, but apart from that it was no ordinary sacred concert: Two numbers, “Come Sunday” and “Tell Me It’s The Truth” would have a vocal on the issued record and in other performances of A Concert of Sacred Music the previous year, but were purely instrumental here – and the two numbers following “In The Beginning God” had no connection to a religious theme. With him on that day in Coventry Cathedral were some highly professional British vocalists, The Cliff Adams Singers and the baritone singer George Webb, giving the performance a special quality, which the band acknowledged by playing on the top of their game. The concert was filmed for TV, and part of it was telecast. Two numbers were regrettably omitted from the TV production, but are on this album, a powerful version of “Light (Montage)” from Black, Brown And Beige, and the above-mentioned “Come Sunday.” The concert also includes a premiere and only performance of a new Ellington composition “Come Easter,” a premiere of another new Ellington piece “West Indian Pancake,” and one of the first performances of a piece which would become an important part of many concerts during the following years, “La Plus Belle Africaine.”

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Duke Ellington & His Famous Orchestra – Far East Suite (1967/2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 44:37 minutes | 1,44 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Legacy Recordings

The Far East Suite is an album by Duke Ellington and his orchestra, recorded in New York City on 19 December to 21 December 1966. The nine compositions on the original album were all composed by Ellington and Billy Strayhorn (except for one by Ellington). Strayhorn died in May, 1967, making The Far East Suite the final album to feature his compositions that was released during his life.

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