Duke's Place - A multipurpose Duke Ellington Thread

An East St. Louis Toodle-oo to you then. Duke's recording career lasted roughly 5 decades! So 1.5 is early, a remarkable point all right.

 

If I had both, I'd probably prefer the Mosaic set, too, but I'll settle for the Columbia sets and $119 extra in my bank account. It is nice to know that this great music is still being handled respectfully, though.

 

I like a 3-cd set that was bought very cheap called 'The Best of Duke Ellington 1932-1939'. The cover has a blue/green tint to it that pops out at you if your looking for it. Like all of my cd's I stream through Sonos. So it's packed in a box with all the details. They also did a Fats Waller and Glen Miller set. The Fats is called 'If you got to ask, you ain't got it'. I remember them all being listed as the 'Popular Recordings'. I think they were cheap imports that somehow also sound pretty good.

 

That was a cheap European Sony series with RCA and Sony material. It was only available for a limited period of time. The series also included Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong sets.

 

I have these two CDs in a boxed set - and I must admit I'm ambivalent about them. There's a bit of fake stereo added to the mastering, I'm sure, though there are Ellington aficionados who claim that this is the finest Jack the Bear has sounded.

My reference point for some of this material (though my turntable is nothing to write home about) is the four double album sets the Smithsonian Institute issued towards the end of the seventies. I wonder are these the source for these French Cds - rather than 78s?

Anyway, the LPs are unadulterated pleasures - straddling the tail end of the Columbia years (1938-9) and the great Blanton-Webster years. they seem to turn up with great regularity on Ebay, are not too pricey and highly recommended.

 

Hi, I'm a newcomer to these great forums...

The first half of Duke's recording career (originally on 78 rpm shellac) may be bewildering to collect in any form... Incidentally, there are five versions of "The Mooche" available from 1928: OKeh, Brunswick, Cameo, Pathe, and Victor. The Victor is my favorite, amazing exchanges between Bubber Miley and Johnny Hodges, and very well recorded.

Some labels attempted comprehensive CD reissues of the early material:

Hot 'n' Sweet/Epm (France)

Master takes and alternatives (perhaps one or two alternatives missing in the whole series), covering 1924-1932. 12 separate CDs: a few of the later volumes use Cedar, but not too detrimentally. Recommended: they did a fine job with these, I think. Epm also issued some compilation discs.

Classics (France)

Master takes, covering 1924-1953: I don't know how many discs, lots and lots... Allegedly, Classics might have used cassette dubs on occasion (not too surprising considering the scope of this endeavor and the rarity of some of the material). Anyway, I find these CDs often have a kind of "natural" sound which I like--never sounding hard or "digitized"--even when sources are less than ideal (although the noise reduction on the '20s sides does seem excessive at times).

Classics 539 (1924-1927) includes Duke's first record as leader: "Choo Choo (Gotta Hurry Home)" / "Rainy Nights" (these are priceless), as well as the original versions of "East St. Louis Toodle Oo" and "Black and Tan Fantasy", and the great "Immigration Blues" which he never recorded again. Note that Classics does omit some of Duke's early accompaniments to singers, and the quality of the '20s material is preferable on Hot 'n' Sweet/Epm.

Neatwork (Austria)

Alternative takes: this label was created specifically to issue items not on Classics... 10 separate CDs, covering 1924-1951. They do sometimes skip a take, here and there. Quality is all over the place, from rough to excellent. I enjoy these, lots of great rare material.

Masters of Jazz (France)

The complete recordings (including alternatives): 10 separate CDs, covering 1924-1930. Recommended, with extensive notes, though I find the mastering on these somewhat indifferent, relatively hazy and indistinct.

. . .

I should perhaps add that while I have a good number of discs from each of these labels, I don't have a complete set of any of them (so my opinions were not based on a complete survey).

Of course there's also Duke's LP era, so much wonderful music... His 'Liberian Suite' (1948) was one of the very first Columbia (10") LPs. There's an excellent instrumental version of "I Like The Sunrise" on Classics 1119 (1947-1948); I prefer it to the more common vocal rendition (the only vocal in The Liberian Suite).

Some great Ellington works were released posthumously, like 'The Queen's Suite' (a single copy was given to Queen Elizabeth in 1959), the small group 'Unknown Session' (from a single session in 1960), and 'The River' (1970).

 

Everybody likes pictures

Some I like

The first is a Book-of-the-Month Club box set

then a double made in Holland

then a 1938 Smithsonian Collection

Then a EMI London issue from 1985, with 78's loaned by JRT Davies amongst others.

Indispensable is 1940-46

 

and two from the Vintage Series

Punkin' adds more sides from the Indispensible era

and more cuts from 1946 on Pretty Woman

 

This is a little off topic but I didn't think it deserved its own thread.

Does anyone know why the CD Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington was mastered at Abbey Roads Studio?

 

It was owned by Roulette, which was sold around '89 to EMI (worldwide) and pop/R&B material in the US to Rhino iirc. So as a jazz title it's EMI.

 

Makes sense. Thanks. I think I'm becoming more anal daily.

 

How is that book-of-the-month fargo set? I've heard good things about that concert but book-of-the-month anything kind of scares me.

 

It's actually not bad. It was my first introduction to the Fargo material. I haven't compared it to the CD version that I have now had for many years, but I'll try and do some A/Bing this weekend and I'll post on what I hear!

L.

 

Very good, indeed.

I have 3-4 other BOTM Club box sets, and can recommend them all.

Louis Armstrong
Dave Brubeck
Glen Miller


great booklets

 

Welcome to the forums

Thank you for the interesting post.

 

Welcome wildroot indigo, I really enjoyed your post. I will watch for some of the great music that you've listed.

 

Thanks for the response on the Fargo concert. I think I will grab a copy over the next few days.

 

The fellow who recorded the concert initially, I think his name is Jack Towers, supervised this set.

 

Thanks, very much.

edit: the Brunswick (October 17) is my favorite... Miley does not appear on the Victor (October 30) version.

 

An interesting post, thanks. I didn't ever recollect an instrumental version only of I Like the Sunrise so I looked this release up. What we have here is actually not an instrumental but the undubbed arrangementy, before the vocal by Al Hibbler was added. Hibbler recorded the vocal a couple of days (?) later. I wonder if that was one of the first instances of an overdub? Presumably they were working on tape then?

Rosemary Clooney later dubbed an entire album over backgrounds of Strayhorn arrangements for the Blue Rose album. This was one of the first 'Ellington' albums I ever bought and got me hooked - just something richer in the music.

But thanks for the heads up on that one - I didn't know the undubbed master was 'out there'. I wonder what other treasures these 'Chronogical' classics uniquely contain?

 

Very interesting, thanks--I hadn't realized the vocal was dubbed... The instrumental was issued on V-Disc: perhaps the title's original (though non-commercial) issue?. It seems there's yet another vocal take, on Up-To-Date LP 'The Studio Recordings, Volume Four' (UTD 2005), but I don't know if the backing track is the same.

I like that album (which contains an intense instrumental "Passion Flower"). She had finesse and a feeling for the music. Also, you mentioned the Smithsonian double LPs: great quality releases. Someone posted an image of '1938'... some truly amazing music, like "Blue Light", "Pyramid", and "A Gypsy Without A Song"... 1939 has a rare alternative of "Subtle Lament", and 1941 includes Standard transcriptions along with the Victor tracks.

 

No and in 1948 (?), probably not. There were a number of overdubs that year in particular owing to the strike... my memory may be cloudy again but I seem to remember a Dean Martin (?) disc with band recorded in Mexico and vocals later in CA, for instance. Not ideal, certainly, but if the recordings were made on transcription disc, as these of Duke's may well have been, the result when cut to 78 need not have been too bad.

 

This one is the same issue as the French, but sounds better, very quite vinyl. it is made in Germany.

 

Some great info here -thanks - I'll have to look out for the up-to-date LP. Thanks, Chris, too, for the info on tapes. I think it was Der Bingle who pioneered the use of tape in the recording studio after the war - but I am very hazy on when this became standard practice in the industry.

 

This is an excellent later Ellington session released by Storyville: