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Upcoming Ellington on Compact Disc


bebopbob

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The three newly reissued Ellington's arrived this morning from CDUniverse .... right on time! My first act was to open the "Ellington Uptown" disc so that I could listen to the "Liberian Suite" section. Great remastering ... far better than I could get from original 10" Lp and later 12" version. I really must congratulate Columbia on the wonderful job they have done with the Ellington series so far. Now the question, what to do with my original CD issues. My original LP's of these sessions went a few years ago when I sold my entire LP collection...

My only regret was there is no color reproduction of the original 10" Lp "Liberian Suite" cover!!

Garth,

Houston.

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My only regret was there is no color reproduction of the original 10" Lp "Liberian Suite" cover!!

Garth,

Houston.

Hey Garth: How's it going? I also thought it was funny that they use the old labels to make the cds look like old Lps. Not old enough however since they're the "stereo" labels.

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I just picked up all three, largely due to this thread combined with my obsessive collector-ness. REALLY good stuff, kudos for the improved sound. Yet even more proof that Clark Terry is a national treasure!!!!!!!!! If he doesn't already, he should have his own thread- he has made as much of an impression on me over the years as anyone I've listened to!

I'm appreciating these more than I did the first time around, more due to my coming to a level of appreciation than any sonic improvement, although the existence of the latter doesn't hurt.

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I received "Masterpieces" and "Festival session" on Friday, but haven´t got time to listen to them properly during the weekend.

Now I´m going through "Masterpieces" and it´s incredible! The coming of the LP era allowed Duke to recreate a bunch of his landmarks with extended arrangements. Beautiful!

The sound is simply superb to these (non-audiophile) ears.

And I really like Columbia/Legacy packaging for their reissues.

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I hadn´t heard the material included in "Festival session" before. It´s a cookin´ date for sure.

Paul Gonsalves tenor sax really smokes on "Copout extension".

For lovers of drums, "Duael Fuel" is a must-have, with a terrific battle between Jimmy Johnson and Sam Woodyard.

And for those who think jazz clarinet died when sax got the spotlight, just listen to Russell Procope and Jimmy Hamilton on "Idiom ´59".

The sound is incredible.

One of the best reissues I´ve heard recently.

5 :tup out of 5 :tup

EDIT: I used the thumbs-down icon instead of the thumbs-up :wacko:

;)

Edited by EKE BBB
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Yeah, these are three incredible reissues. I wasn't expecting to be blown away by the Masterpieces disc, I figured it was just "another" recording of the classics, etc, but this is really something special, and excellent sound for the early 50's, heck, even for today.

Festival Session is great too, I'd never heard anything about this disc before, and can't figure out why it's been so obscure and OOP for so long. You're right Jimmy Hamilton has some of his best moments on record on this cd. And Gonsalves on Copout is so full of energy and swing - wow!

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Wonderful to have them - only one complaint.

While I appreciate the vintage label reproductions used on the CDs themselves, they need to use the correct ones for the period.

"6 Eye" Stereo labels on early and mid-fifties releases are not correct. They match the "Festival Session" CS series fine, but the earlier releases are not stereo and that kind of spoils the illusion.

No complaint with the music though, but SONY needs to pay a little more attention to details - collectors do!

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I only had the chance to listen to Masterpiece of the 3 CDs. I had the French CD but I picked the new one up anyhow. The arrangements are incredible. From reading the Strayhorn biog, I remember that he was very involved in this project. While its sometimes hard to tell where Ellington is involved and where STrayhorn is involved, I think some of the arrangements have a certain beauty to them. There is a part of Solitude that has a cascading movement by various combinations of instruments that must be heard.

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