Duke Ellington

“The arrival of 1999 marks the centennial of the birth of Edward Kennedy (Duke) Ellington, America’s most prolific composer of the 20th century in both number of pieces (almost 2,000) and variety of forms. Duke’s artistic development and sustained achievement were among the most spectacular in the history of music. His was a distinctly democratic vision of music in the service of the whole band’s sound and, more than any other composer, he codified the sound of America in the 20th century.”

Wynton Marsalis, The New York Times, Jan. 17, 1999

As the 100th anniversary of the birth of Duke Ellington approaches on April 29, 1999, one of the most ambitious and far-reaching reissue and restoration projects of his music has moved into the final phase of production at Columbia/Legacy, a division of Sony Music. This unprecedented multi-level program will ultimately cover the entire recording career of Ellington for Columbia and its affiliated labels that released his music starting in 1927.

The Duke Ellington album project gets underway with four titles set for April 27th in-store date: SUCH SWEET THUNDER (his Shakespeare concept of ’56-’57); BLACK, BROWN & BEIGE (the landmark gospel Lp of ’58, featuring Mahalia Jackson); ANATOMY OF A MURDER (the only motion picture soundtrack to showcase Duke as both composer and bandleader); and FIRST TIME! THE COUNT MEETS THE DUKE (their dual-channel summit meeting of the bands from 1961).

Two weeks later, May 11th is the in-store date for ELLINGTON AT NEWPORT 1956 – COMPLETE, perhaps the single most-anticipated event in Ellingtonia, as the curtain is finally raised for the first time on the real concert performance in its entirety that took place onstage at the jazzfest that summer. It is presented in stereo (another first) as a double-CD that includes the set that was re-recorded in New York the next day (complete with fake applause and announcements), which has stood as Duke’s best-selling album for more than four decades.

August 10th marks the in-store date for THE DUKE, a triple-CD boxed-set that surveys virtually the entire career of Ellington, which began at Columbia in 1927 with his very first recording, “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo.” The boxed-set will encompass Ellington’s three great periods with the company, including his work for Columbia, OKeh, and the various ARC (American Record Company) labels:

CD one: 1927-1940, from the Washingtonians and the Harlem Footwarmers, into the golden era of the Duke Ellington Orchestra;

CD two: 1947-52, big band survival in the post-war period, when virtually every other jazz orchestra faded;

CD three: 1956-1962, the long-play album period, including highlights from the five albums described elsewhere in this writing as well as several others.

THE DUKE has been compiled by reissue specialist (and Columbia jazz executive) Henri Renaud of France, a jazz musician, composer, arranger and producer whose career began in the 1940s and continues today. Liner notes were written by noted Ellington authority Robert G. O’Meally, professor of American Studies at Columbia University, and co-producer of the Smithsonian Institution’s Grammy-nominated 5-CD boxed-set, The Jazz Singers.

The Duke Ellington album project is being researched, restored and remastered by jazz historian and long-time WKCR-FM (Columbia University, New York) air personality Phil Schaap, whose diligence on Miles Davis & Gil Evans: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings led to three 1996 Grammy awards. The digital remastering process (which includes both analog and digital stereo synchronization and pitch control) is supervised by Mark Wilder at Sony Music Studios in New York, utilizing the 20-Bit SBM (Super Bit Mapping Process).

Schaap has unearthed previously unreleased material (alternate takes, out-takes and other rare masters) from far-flung sources, and restored long-dormant stereo masters by utilizing state-of-the-art digital technology. Further enhancing the reissues are original Lp liner notes, augmented by new essays from guest musicians (like Wynton Marsalis) or original band members (like former bassist Aaron Bell, and former valve trombonist John Sanders), plus Schaap’s always intricately detailed elucidations.

“Ellington’s Orchestra existed before the Swing Era, during it, and most remarkably, after it,” writes Phil Schaap in his new liner notes to ELLINGTON AT NEWPORT 1956 – COMPLETE. By 1956, however, the chasm between mere existence and prosperity had overtaken Ellington. He saw the popular outdoor jazzfest (in its third year, having started in 1954) as a means to redeem his reputation with fans, critics, journalists – and Columbia Records, with whom he had signed a new 5-year contract just the week before. Imagine Duke’s exasperation, then, when at 8:30 showtime, Saturday night, he found four key players missing; their absence was a real problem and after three numbers he yanked the orchestra from the stage. Three hours later (just before midnight) the full band returned to the stage with a set that began with Duke’s theme, “Take the A Train,” and would go on to make history.

A half-hour or so into the set (which included Ellington’s 20-minute, three-part “NJF Suite” composed for the occasion) the band launched into “Diminuendo In Blue.” The tune was customarily segued into the set’s closing “Crescendo In Blue” via an interlude played by Duke, but tonight he gave the interlude to tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves. ‘Mex’ proceeded to burn down the house with a solo of 27 choruses that sent the crowd into a frenzy. Instead of leaving, Duke wisely stayed onstage, cooling down the crowd by featuring alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges on a couple of lush encores, “I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good)” and “Jeep’s Blues.” When festival impresario George Wein then took the mic to end the show, a riot of rock and roll proportions nearly ensued. Again, Duke saved the day, offering “Skin Deep” and a brief statement of “Mood Indigo.” Now, the concert was over.

Even as the wire services buzzed with the story of Duke’s ‘comeback’ and Gonsalves’ triumph, Columbia producer George Avakian knew that he had a winner on his hands, and the jazz public would respond. Even so, he had made up his mind to bring the orchestra to New York the next day (Monday) and re-record the concert set. Gonsalves had played his entire solo into the Voice Of America’s mic instead of the Columbia mic, which was enough of a reason to re-record; in fact, Avakian was just generally displeased with the set. He had Duke and emcee Father Norman O’Connor (New York radio’s ‘jazz pastor’) re-record their stage announcements and introductions. Stock applause was dubbed onto the recording, which was significantly resequenced from the concert order. The 39-minute Lp that resulted from this included about 15 minutes actually taken from the concert set (which was about 90 minutes long) and 24 minutes from the studio.

Ironically, this best-selling album of Ellington’s career would have remained as is for eternity, had not Schaap and certain colleagues discovered the original Voice Of America tapes were still archived at the Library of Congress. Through a complex, painstaking and time-consuming technical process, a digital synchronization with the Columbia tapes yielded a true stereo master that enabled the original concert to be restored to its natural state. (This technique had been utilized briefly for a track on the Miles Davis/Gil Evans boxed-set, and a track on the reissue of Billie Holiday’s Lady In Satin, but never for a double-CD’s worth of music.) Finally, after more than four decades, to hear that concert in its entirety, as the Newport audience heard it that night, is nothing less than a transcendent experience.

No such dramatic circumstances attended the creation of SUCH SWEET THUNDER, though drama – and tragedy and comedy – were certainly at the heart of the matter. The parallels between William Shakespeare and Duke Ellington are taken for granted nowadays. Both were prolific writers. The Bard wrote for his repertory company and the Duke wrote (almost exclusively) for his repertory company, namely his orchestra. It had long been one of Ellington’s (and Billy Strayhorn’s) ambitions to bring the characters, feelings and situations of Shakespeare’s plays into the orchestral repertoire.

On August 7, 1956, one month to the day after Newport, Duke and Columbia producer Irving Townsend set to work. The takes were tentative and they did not return to the project for five months, only completing three more takes. Into 1957, their endeavors blossomed in the springtime and yielded nearly all the portraits on the original 12-track Lp; most of the 10 bonus tracks date from the earlier ’56 sessions. Although this was publicly announced to be Duke’s first stereo release, an engineering snafu (mono vs. stereo ambience) precluded the stereo release. Once again, Schaap utilizes digital technology to overcome the snafu, restore the tracks to stereo, and reconcile several titles with Strayhorn and Ellington works preceding SUCH SWEET THUNDER.

By 1958, Ellington was secure enough at Columbia to return to BLACK, BROWN & BEIGE, a project he’d started back in 1943, an extended-form piece (or suite) that musically represented the odyssey of blacks in America. From Africa to slavery, emancipation and finally assimilation, it was alternately joyous and sorrowful, something he called “a tone parallel to the history of the American Negro.” Totally misunderstood by the press when he first presented it at one of his annual Carnegie Hall concerts in ’43, Ellington returned to the suite only twice over the next decade or so to record it. The third time was the charm, however, as Columbia recruited its spiritual megastar Mahalia Jackson, who deigned to sing on Duke’s soon-to-become gospel standard “Come Sunday” and a moving version of the 23rd Psalm. The bonus material includes Mahalia’s acappella version of “Come Sunday” and some eye-opening studio conversation.

Ellington was commissioned by director Otto Preminger in 1959, to compose the original motion picture soundtrack for ANATOMY OF A MURDER (starring James Stewart, Lee Remick and George C. Scott). It was Duke’s first assignment as a composer and bandleader/orchestrator on a film score, and many jazz optimists perceived it as Hollywood’s long overdue recognition of the artist. Behind the scenes, however, the orchestra was really unprepared (or at least untrained) in the discipline and rigor of this highly specialized craft. Most of the recording from the first three days of sessions at Radio Recorders went unused, and it was not until the band was brought to 20th Century-Fox Studios and the crunch of deadline! (as Wynton Marsalis’ liner notes emphasize) was upon Duke and his men that Preminger got what he wanted.

Though Marsalis and Schaap both have reservations about the way the music was ultimately used on-screen, historical consensus regards it as one of the top jazz soundtracks ever, alongside The Man With the Golden Arm, Pete Kelly’s Blues, and precious few others. Schaap has done away with the reverb that marred the original 34-minute Lp, and come up with more than twice as much music with rare (or previously unreleased) rehearsal takes, rare singles, cues, dialog, and an open-ended promotional deejay interview with Ellington himself.

On the 1961 summit meeting entitled FIRST TIME! THE COUNT MEETS THE DUKE, there is a warmth and camaraderie not only between Basie and Ellington but between their band members that is nearly visceral. (As bassist Aaron Bell recalls in his guest liner notes, that may have had something to do with the open bar set up in the far corner of the studio!) Rather than stage a ‘battle of the bands’ (a concept that Basie and his manager tossed in the toilet before the sessions ever began), a decision was made to find ways for the bands to complement each other. “Basie believed that his collaboration with Ellington was about compatibility not competition,” notes Schaap.

With the Basie clan in one stereo channel (left) and Ellington’s crew in the other (right) there were opportunities galore for soloists to dig in and work. The repertoire on the original 8-tune LP neatly alternated back and forth between Ellington and Basie staples, a format that Schaap has stuck to with the out-takes and alternates that boost this CD to 15 tracks. “All this business about royalty has always thrown me,” begin George T. Simon’s original liner notes. In this case, the Count and the Duke enjoy a noble time, indeed.