Duke's Place - A multipurpose Duke Ellington Thread

Your daughter has a good ear. I'm amazed at how close the woman's voice and the trumpet sound, and yes it does sound like a human voice.

 

The Mooche is such a great tune. I have to admit the version made in 1928 is, by far, the best that I've heard. The hairs on my neck stand up when Baby Cox starts singing and then the trumpet... so eery and so human sounding. The interplay is fantastic, clarinet, sax, guitar, voice and trumpet all have great parts.

I have four other versions, all good in their own way but nowhere near as good as the first. The others rank as follows:

2. Ellington Uptown (1953), much longer but the interplay is nowhere near as good (mainly clarinet and saxophone).
3. Together For The First Time with Louis Armstrong (1961), good but I was expecting more from Louis Armstrong's trumpet.
4. An Electrifying Evening With The Dizzy Gillespie Quintet (1961), tons of great trumpet playing but not in the spirit of The Mooche.
5. The Duke At Tanglewood (1966), a great collaboration with Arthur Fiedler and The Boston Pops. A nice classical reinvention.

Honestly, I like all five versions but the earliest is that good.

 

I just discovered that there were two 1928 versions of 'The Mooche,' both recorded in October. The one on the above RCA Victor compilation This Is Duke Ellington VPM-6042 (recorded Oct. 1) is about three and a half minutes and the first part has some percussion going on, that almost sound like coconuts. The version on the Ken Burns comp (recorded Oct. 30) is slightly shorter and has no percussion.

 

Wonderful stuff, cartoon-y and fun, yet very high quality music.

When my daughter was 5 or 6, "The OKeh Ellington" was her favorite album. "Play the Duke, daddy!"

Is there a good-sounding, comprehensive collection of the Blanton-Webster material? The 3-CD/4-LP set from the '80s sounds pretty terrible (although the LP packaging is very attractive).

 

Cute!

She also likes Mel Blanc's cover of 'Toot, Toot, Tootsie' and Judy Canova singing 'Twenty-Five Chickens, Thirty-Five Cows.' Currently she is obsessed with 'I Am the Walrus,' so her taste is pretty eclectic.

 

Ellington made so few clinkers, remarkable quality ratio for a career that long.

For early Ellington, I really like this one, which SOONERFAN mentioned also:



Out of print now and listed for a fortune on Amazon but I see it in the used bins in stores for a lot less now and then. All stuff recorded between 1926-31, so mostly right in that "sweet spot" 1927-34 period Steve mentions. Reasonably well mastered (well to me anyway...some people want all the old 78 stuff no-noised to death, this ain't that!) and comprehensively annotated by Ellington authority Steven Lasker.

 

Available at the jazzloft for cheap:

http://www.jazzloft.com/p-45949-complete-original-american-decca-recordings.aspx

Different edition but sounds OK.

 

That's a set on the Definitive label, one of those shady labels based in Andorra. I wouldn't recommend it.

 

I just looked at my information and The Mooche in The Greatest Jazz Recordings Of All Time is credited as being recorded on October 1st, 1928, released as Okeh 8623 (3:17). The Mooche in the Ken Burns box set was also recorded October 1, 1928 (3:14).

Does the percussion last about 15 seconds? is it a lopped off intro?

 

These recordings are public domain in Europe. Nothing shady about it in this case. I do not know how the situation is in the US. Actually, if this label puts oop recordings back in circulation, it is doing something, which I wholeheartedly support.

 

My Ellington collection is comprised of the SACDS of BLUES IN ORBIT and ELLINGTON UPTOWN and CDs of ...AND HIS MOTHER CALLED HIM BILL, MONEY JUNGLE, and the BEYOND CATEGORY box set.

I guess the intimidating prospect of collecting Duke is the sheer volume of his body of work. In addition, you have the small groups, major orchestral works, soundtrack work, conceptual pieces, etc., to further add to the choices.

Granted, I consider such a breadth and scope to be truly monumental and also hold Duke as one a handful of musical giants of the 20th Century; it also makes collecting his music almost impossible without unlimited funds (my collecting personality tends to lean towards being comprehensive).

I look forward to following this thread and finding out what works really grab forum members and which ones are considered indispensable.

 

From what you already have, I'd probably add the Anatomy Of A Murder soundtrack (Similar to Blues In Orbit), and Jazz Party (an in studio concert with added guests).

 

I love Ivie Anderson. The song,Flamingo, with Herb Jeffries is an acquired taste for me though.....

 

Right. The original release is OOP, and the definitive may not be forever in print either. Get it while you can folks. Great music.

 

Hi, Matt - yes, I certainly have - though, funnily enough, I don't listen to this album as much as the others from this period. It was issued in the batch to commemorate Duke's 100th that really kicked off the whole thing for me. Apparently this was the fuirst time the album was issued in stereo - but they used the wrong version of the Puck theme - to the annoyance of purists. I later tracked down a CBS mono CD from France for the 'correct' version.

Phil Schaap was the producer(?)of these centennial re-issues. He seemed to come in for a lot of stick one way and another. I understand George Avakian was not pleased with what he did with the Newport album - and that George himself was going to produce a definitive version now it is out of copyright in Europe - don't know what happened to that project, though.

One Phil Schaap issue I would love to hear is the two Cd set he prepared - in stereo - of A Drum is a Woman - a great favourite of mine. It was all prepared even down to the serial number and ready to go - but never happened. I wish Mosaic would get a hold of that one for their 'select' series - or even a vinyl pressing.

To my shame I don't often visit the 1927-34 period - so many versions of the same tunes on different labels. This thread has certainly encouraged me to look again at these early works.

 

Combining two mono tapes into one stereo release?

 

Yes - I don't know quite what George Avakian's problem with this new release was - I've never heard an original LP nor the blue banded first CD issue either to know for sure. I suppose I shouldn't retail half-remembered stuff here. Wasn't the original album pieced together with studio re-takes? I would have thought the centennary issue would have been the definite article, really. Maybe someone more expert can chime in on the history of the Newport album?

 

Yes it sounds like the intro on the shorter version was lopped off - the percussion is limited just to that portion.... did my eyes deceive me on the date? the same recording then?

Another favorite, and a cool recording to boot, is the famous Fargo gig from 1940 where the local engineers from Univ. of Dakota recorded the entire set on doubled up 16" transcriptors.

The original issue of the Newport album was apparently all from a follow-up recording a day or so later; the Columbia recording of the gig had missed several important solos. The concert was sponsored by Voice of America and it turned out that their recording, now in the Library of Congress, had captured those elements of the performance very well. The reissue producers matrixed the two recordings together (as with the 1932 medleys on the reflections CD cited above) to create true stereo of the entire gig.

It's strange how often this kind of subterfuge was done; there are at least two Peggy Lee albums from that period that did the same (Beauty and the Beat and Basin Street East).

 

No expert here, but the original album had live and studio stuff, if I remember correctly, because Paul Gonsalves used the wrong Voice of America-microphone. On the new edition this is not a problem any longer, because they found the VoA broadcast and spliced it together.

 

Ellington at Newport? As related, apparently there were two mic setups to two tapes, one for Columbia Records and one for a Voice Of America broadcast. Columbia only had access to its tapes. At times the soloists favored one mic or the other; the producer of the original LP made his choices as to which he felt were the highlights and which had turned out on the Columbia tape, then booked the band to record some tracks in studio, combining the two on the finished LP.

The Complete 2 CD set of the concert synchronizes the Columbia and VOA source tapes to present the full concert, as well as producing a sort-of hap-hazard stereo effect where possible. I don't know why a deal couldn't be made between Columbia and VOA, but synchronizing the tapes that precisely and consistently may have been quite the challenge if not impossible in the '50s. The studio session is also included, from the session tapes.

Personally I like having both the LP version and complete CD set. While I enjoy the concert as an experience, I feel there is something to be said for the abridged and partially remade mixture on the original LP as a work of its own. Schaap is to be credited for his efforts in reconstructing the historic concert and making it available. I can easily imagine folks might prefer hearing the original LP version more often.

 

This is an important and elaborate audio reconstruction to which the description above does an injustice, IMO. Get the discs, read the extensive liner notes which describes how the engineering was done, and listen to the music. It's a bargain. http://www.amazon.com/Ellington-At-...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1265678410&sr=1-1

Having said that, I prefer the performance on All Star Road Band which I first encountered as a Japanese import. Better sound quality, too. Similar era and line-up. The charts are first rate, Gonsalves blows his brains out which proves that Newport was just a typical night's work. http://www.amazon.com/All-Star-Road...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1265678505&sr=1-1

 

My post was not extensive nor intended to properly document the release, being a brief chat post for free. Your description does me an injustice but doesn't add squat to what I already said.

 

I've only heard the original LP of the 1956 Newport concert, I'll have to check out the 2 disc set because it does look very interesting.

It's funny, I have the Mosaic disc of the 1958 Newport concert, but not the original album. I'd like to compare the two because I hear there are differences between them.

Are all of the live discs messed with or did I happen upon two of the biggest culprits?

 

The 3-disc RCA Blanton-Webster Years was my first encounter with Duke and this era (expanded to included the years represented by the BB&B follow-up) remains my favourite. Unfortunately, it is poorly represented on CD. It didn't bother me for a long time--I just thought it was recorded like that.

From the album era, the later Black, Brown & Beige is probably my favourite. Yes it lacks Hodges and that is a great loss, but it has Mahalia Jackson on it which knocks it right back up.

Such Sweet Thunder is probably next on my list.
Far East Suite
The 'duet' album with Basie, 'First Time.'
Ellington Uptown, in its various incarnations.


I have many, but those are tops.