CD 1
- Ring Dem Bells
- Jumpin' Punkins
- Beale Street Blues
- Memphis Blues
- The Golden Feather
- The Air-Conditioned Jungle
- A Very Unbooted Character
- Sultry Sunset
- The Deep South Suite - Magnolias just dripping with Molasses, Hearsay, There was nobody looking and Happy go lucky Local
- Things ain't what they used to be
- Hiawatha
- Ride Red Ride ¹
- A Blues Riff ¹
- Improvisation ¹
- Honeysuckle Rose ¹
- Blue Skies - Trumpet No End
CD 2
- Star Spangled Banner
- In a Mellotone
- Solid Old
- Black, Brown and Beige Suite - Come Sunday, Work Song
- Rugged Romeo
- Circe
- Perfume Suite - Dancers in Love, Coloratura
- Frankie & Johnny
- Caravan
- Take the A Train
- Mellow Ditty
- Fugue
- Jam a Ditty
- Magenta Haze
- Fitter Panther Patter
- Suburban.
Duke Ellington Orchestra with Django Reinhardt (guitar) ¹
rec. Chicago, The Civic Opera, January and November 1946 ¹
Ellington and his band were on tour throughout 1946 and this double
set showcases two concerts given in Chicago at the beginning and the
end of the year. The November set also saw the appearance of Django
Reinhardt on a borrowed electric guitar and his presence on four tracks
- essentially solo, with sketchy arrangements - is a must for those
yet to have heard it. But then the rest of the programme is hardly
a chore, since there are some typically fabulous Ducal things here.
The programme is back presented, with the December concert with Reinhardt
occupying disc one. We hear Duke's piano with Harry Carney and
Sonny Greer to the fore in Ring Dem Bells before some liquid
and gloriously impersonal Jimmy Hamilton clarinet on Beale Street
Blues. Due to the exigencies of the recorded set up - these are
obviously ad hoc non-commercial recordings made by John Steiner using
overhead microphones - there are decidedly odd sectional balances
as well as fade outs and some endings cut somewhat short. They don't
impede enjoyment. Carney unveils his rhapsodic self on The Golden
Feather whilst A Very Unbooted Character is notable for
the trumpet exchanges of Ray Nance and Shorty Baker. Note too the
less well known Sultry Sunset where Duke's side slipping
piano sets up its own mood and where Hamilton shows strong personality
in his solo. Ellington was deep into his Suites at the time and here
we have The Deep South Suite which ends, it's often forgotten,
with Happy go lucky Local. The first number, Magnolias
just dripping with Molasses, is despite its laden imagery a real
swinger with subtle colouration. Hearsay is a sombre Lento
whilst There was nobody looking sports a charming Ducal solo.
When Greer goes into a back beat groove on Hiawatha the blood
corpuscles swell and Al Sears's long solo adds to the brew - not
especially distinguished but good indeed, and presaging the arrival
later in the band of Paul Gonsalves. Then it's time for Django
and four brief numbers pulsing with the astonishing fluency of which
he was the only master. The band provides, in effect, opening and
closing cues but the meat is Django, with the Duke providing blues
prompts on A Blues Riff.
The January 1946 concert featured a somewhat different band. Francis
Williams and Bernard Flood were in the trumpet section soon to be
replaced by the elite Baker and Nance team. Otto Hardwick was still
in the sax section; Russell Procope replaced him later on. Highlights
here include a swinging Lawrence Brown on Solid Old Man, the
two extracted items from the Black, Brown and Beige Suite and
more besides. Let's focus on Taft Jordan's springy trumpet
solo on Rugged Romeo and the mini concerto for Cat Anderson,
Coloratura from the Perfume Suite, in which he mines
Ziggy Elman's schtik Duke turns on the Stride Piano in Frankie
and Johnny and classical voicings in vaguely pastel-impressionist
hue (his favourite influence Eastwood Lane, probably) in Mellow
Ditty. The Ducal Fugue is not a Fugue at all but we can
wait instead for Johnny Hodges in Magenta Haze and it's
well worth the wait. One of my favourite things in Jazz happens to
be the intoxicating few bars Duke strolled out in his ineffable Dancers
in Love, another number from his Perfume Suite. It's
a cure for anything.
Powerful Ellingtonia then in this well filled set, with the added
attraction of Reinhardt. These live recordings capture the band in
sometimes unexpected emphases due to the microphone placements, but
the powerful individualism of its members never falters.
Jonathan Woolf
Because Duke Ellington was one of the most prolific artists in the
history of jazz, it is diffficult to keep track of all his recordings
and performances, but it is good to have this recording of two concerts
in Chicago. The recordings were apparently released on the Music Masters
label in 1994 but they are rare and therefore well worth reissuing.
Both CDs were recorded at Chicago's Civic Opera: the first on 10
November 1946; the second on 20 January 1946. They contain many familiar
Ducal compositions but they also include several rarities: like the
Deep South Suite on the first CD. This CD is also notable for
the presence of guitarist Django Reinhardt. The Duke had met Django
in Paris in 1939 and was very impressed with his musicianship. In
his book Music is my Mistress, Ellington called him "A
very great friend of mine, and one whom I regard as among the four
great inimitables of our music".
Reinhardt certainly displays his greatness in four tracks, where
he plays an electric guitar, on which he sounds like a cross between
Charlie Christian and Les Paul. It makes a change from the chugging
acoustic guitar we usually hear him playing. He shows his astonishing
technique in Ride, Red, Ride (a variation of Tiger Rag),
a long outing on the blues, and a ruminative unaccompanied Improvisation
No. 2. The band joins in for Honeysuckle Rose, punching
riffs behind Django's soloing.
This is the undoubted highspot of the first CD but there are plenty
of other things to savour. The Deep South Suite is a new three-part
composition with veiled references to the contrast between the dream
and the reality of life under slavery, moving from an optimistic opening
to the dour Hearsay. There is a further contrast in the sprightly
There Was Nobody Looking, a piano solo which Duke explained
as "When nobody is looking, many people of different extractions
are able to get along well together". The fourth and final movement
of the suite, Happy-Go-Local became one of Ellington's most
popular pieces, picturing a small local train tottering noisily down
the track.
Other highlights of the first CD include a strolling version of Beale
Street Blues (with declamatory solos from Lawrence Brown and Ray
Nance); The Air-Conditioned Jungle featuring Jimmy Hamilton's
clear-toned clarinet; and The Golden Feather, which spotlights
the gorgeously deep sound of Harry Carney's baritone sax.
There are imperfections in the recording. For instance, Memphis
Blues suddenly fades out in the middle, and Blue Skies
lacks its opening. And the balance is variable - although this
has one surprising benefit. It allows us to hear vigorous way that
drummer Sonny Greer propelled the band, with driving rimshots and
sudden unexpected outbursts (which are occasionally chaotic). On most
Ellington recordings, Sonny Greer's offerings tend to be submerged,
so it is heartening to hear good reasons why the Duke employed him
for more than 30 years.
The second CD is equally engrossing, opening with the USA's national
anthem and including such Ducal favourites as In a Mellotone
and Take the "A" Train. There is a new work: a suite
of three movements under the collective title of "A Tonal Group".
This comprises the dreamy Mellow Ditty (with an exquisite solo
from altoist Johnny Hodges); Fugue, in which Jimmy Hamilton
and Harry Carney's clarinets combat an increasingly complex variety
of instruments from the orchestra; and Jam-a-Ditty, which is
what its title implies: a bluesy jam. The helpful sleeve-note calls
this last "a kind of concerto grosso" and its structure
is way ahead of the big-band norm.
There are two excerpts from the 1943 suite Black, Brown and Beige:
Come Sunday with soaring playing from Lawrence Brown and Johnny
Hodges, and the more extrovert Work Song. There are also two
sections of 1944's Perfume Suite: Dancers in Love, with
Ellington soloing on the jaunty tune, and the melodramatic Coloratura,
in which trumpeter Cat Anderson portrays "a prima donna who feels
she is always making an entrance".
Frankie and Johnny lets Duke Ellington and Jimmy Hamilton
stretch out with joyous solos, and Oscar Pettiford's double bass adds
to the excitement. Magenta Haze is a beautiful outing for Johnny
Hodges. Ellington and Pettiford pay tribute to deceased bassist Jimmy
Blanton with Pitter Panther Patter. The concert ends on a rousing
note with Suburbanite, where Al Sears' tenor-sax snakes around
luxuriously.
I can't understand why the two concerts on this double album were
not put in chronological order, but otherwise I cannot find fault
with this highly commendable set. Thank heaven that John Steiner recorded
these concerts in a resonant acoustic which captures the spirit of
the band.
Tony Augarde
CD Reviews
Nimbus NI 2719-20
