*** The Duke Ellington Corner ***

[king ubu]

"Rex Stewart and the Ellingtonians"

That one contains the two HRS sessions under Stewart's leadership, correct?

© Rex Stewart's Big Seven

Rex Stewart (cor), Lawrence Brown (tb), Barney Bigard (cl), Billy Kyle (p), Brick Fleagle (g), Wellman Braud (b), Dave Tough (d).

NYC July 23, 1940

76396-B Cherry HRS 2004, Riv RLP 144

76397-A Solid Rock HRS 2005, Riv RLP 144

76398-A Bugle Call Rag HRS 2005, Riv RLP 144

76399-A Diga Diga Doo HRS-2004, Riv RLP 144

Note: Until this set, the unaccomanied trumpet introduction of "Solid Rock" appeared only on the original 78 issue.

(U) Rex Stewart's Big Four

Rex Stewart (cor), Billy Kyle (p), John Levy (b), Cozy Cole (d).

NYC, c.July 1947

1072-2 Flim Flam HRS 1041, Riv RLP144

1073-2 Blues Kicked The Bucket HRS 1040, Riv RLP144

1074-1 Madeleine HRS 1040, Riv RLP144

1074-3 Madeleine (alt) previously unissued

1075-2 Loopin' Lobo HRS 1041, Riv RLP144

additionally these HRS session also feature Stewart - is any of those used to fill up the CD?

(D) Jack Teagarden's Big Eight

Rex Stewart (cor), Jack Teagarden (tb,vcl-1), Barney Bigard (cl), Ben Webster (ts), Billy Kyle (p), Brick Fleagle (g), Billy Taylor (b), Dave Tough (d).

NYC December 15, 1940

R3414 St. James Infirmary -1 HRS 2006, Riv RLP141

R3415 The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise HRS 2007, Riv RLP141

R3416 Big Eight Blues HRS 2007, Riv RLP141

R3417 Shine HRS 2006, 1051, Riv RLP141

Note: "Shine" was assigned a new master number 1088 on HRS 1051.

(S) Brick Fleagle's Rhythmakers

Rex Stewart (cor), Billy Taylor (p), Brick Fleagle (g), Chocolate Williams (b, vcl-1), Jimmy Crawford (d).

NYC, May 5, 1947

1064-1 They'll Do It Every Time-1 HRS 1036

1065-4 On You, It Looks Good-1 HRS 1036

1066-2 Wig Wham Blues (aka Green Light)-1 HRS 1037

1067-2 Blue Stew (aka Jive Junction) HRS 1037

Note: HRS 1036 is issued as by Chocolate Williams with Brick Fleagle's Rhythmakers.

HRS 1037 lists the composer for 1066 and 1067 as Johnson, but the company's publishing files confirm that they are written by Rex Stewart.

Anyone knows how/why some of the HRS dates ended up on OJC albums (and CDs), or rather on Riverside?

here's the album list from the Mosaic disco, also albums on Atlantic and other labels were released with HRS material:

Atlantic 10" 116 title unknown - possibly not issued

Atlantic 10" 126 Pee Wee Russell

Atlantic 1206 Sidney Bechet & Muggsy Spanier-Duets

Allegro 1643 Jazz All-Stars

Ultraphonic 8043 reissue of above

Halo 50229 reissue of above

Riv RLP 138/139 Sidney Bechet - In Memorium

Riv RLP 141 Jack Teagarden's Big Eight/Pee Wee Russell's Rhythmakers

OJC 1708 reissue of above

OJCCD 1708-2 CD reissue of above

Riv RLP 142 The Classic Swing of Buck Clayton

OJC 1709 reissue of above

OJCCD 1709-2 CD reissue of above

Riv RLP 143 Giants Of Small Band Swing - Volume 1

OJC 1723 reissue of above

OJCCD 1723-2 CD reissue of above

Riv RLP 144 Rex Stewart And The Ellingtonians

OJC 1710 reissue of above

OJCCD 1710-2 CD reissue of above

Riv RLP 145 Giants Of Small Band Swing - Volume 2

OJC 1724 reissue of above

OJCCD 1724-2 CD reissue of above

[paul secor]

If anyone's interested in this music, get the Mosaic HRS. The sound is fantastic - especially compared to the Riverside/OJCs - plus a lot of great music that Riverside/OJC never issued.

[king ubu]

Yes, I forgot to say that the HRS is absolutely great!

[BruceH]

If anyone's interested in this music, get the Mosaic HRS. The sound is fantastic - especially compared to the Riverside/OJCs - plus a lot of great music that Riverside/OJC never issued.

I can vouch for that.

[king ubu]

http://www.mosaicrecords.com/prodinfo.asp?number=187-MD-CD

It's been around for a loooong time - not that I would intend to create any panic, or some such, but then it's really a terrific set, and possibly by now easier to get than the OJC CDs!

[papsrus]

If anyone's interested in this music, get the Mosaic HRS. The sound is fantastic - especially compared to the Riverside/OJCs - plus a lot of great music that Riverside/OJC never issued.

Yes, I forgot to say that the HRS is absolutely great!

If anyone's interested in this music, get the Mosaic HRS. The sound is fantastic - especially compared to the Riverside/OJCs - plus a lot of great music that Riverside/OJC never issued.

I can vouch for that.

Thanks. I'm looking at the Mosaic now. I don't know the answer to Paul's original question about the material on the Rex Stewart disc I ordered, I'm afraid. A cut from that Ellingtonians album was featured on the BBC program -- "Cherry," I believe. Sensational tune.

The HRS does look inviting.

EDIT: On order. Thanks so much for pointing this one out. Very excited!

Edited March 7, 2008 by papsrus

[kinuta]

If anyone's interested in this music, get the Mosaic HRS. The sound is fantastic - especially compared to the Riverside/OJCs - plus a lot of great music that Riverside/OJC never issued.

Yes, I forgot to say that the HRS is absolutely great!

If anyone's interested in this music, get the Mosaic HRS. The sound is fantastic - especially compared to the Riverside/OJCs - plus a lot of great music that Riverside/OJC never issued.

I can vouch for that.

Thanks. I'm looking at the Mosaic now. I don't know the answer to Paul's original question about the material on the Rex Stewart disc I ordered, I'm afraid. A cut from that Ellingtonians album was featured on the BBC program -- "Cherry," I believe. Sensational tune.

The HRS does look inviting.

EDIT: On order. Thanks so much for pointing this one out. Very excited!

The Mosaic HRS is great , it's one of my most played Mosaics.

[sjarrell]

I've just been digging around in the Ellington section at Amazon. Has anyone else noticed that the Columbias are disappearing? Uptown, Black, Brown and Beige, Count Meets Duke, Blues in Orbit, Piano in the Foreground- they're only available from marketplace sellers. And Thunder's 'not in stock'.

Is Sony deleting Ellington or are there yet more remasters on the horizon?

[kh1958]

I've just been digging around in the Ellington section at Amazon. Has anyone else noticed that the Columbias are disappearing? Uptown, Black, Brown and Beige, Count Meets Duke, Blues in Orbit, Piano in the Foreground- they're only available from marketplace sellers. And Thunder's 'not in stock'.

Is Sony deleting Ellington or are there yet more remasters on the horizon?

These are (or have recently been) available from dustygroove for $5.99. Presumably they are all being deleted.

In fact, I wondered if Columbia was busy deleting its entire non-Miles jazz CD catalog.

Edited March 18, 2008 by kh1958

[zen archer]

If anyone's interested in this music, get the Mosaic HRS. The sound is fantastic - especially compared to the Riverside/OJCs - plus a lot of great music that Riverside/OJC never issued.

Yes, I forgot to say that the HRS is absolutely great!

If anyone's interested in this music, get the Mosaic HRS. The sound is fantastic - especially compared to the Riverside/OJCs - plus a lot of great music that Riverside/OJC never issued.

I can vouch for that.

Thanks. I'm looking at the Mosaic now. I don't know the answer to Paul's original question about the material on the Rex Stewart disc I ordered, I'm afraid. A cut from that Ellingtonians album was featured on the BBC program -- "Cherry," I believe. Sensational tune.

The HRS does look inviting.

EDIT: On order. Thanks so much for pointing this one out. Very excited!

I need to pull the Trigger on the HRS set , it seems i have been eyeing this FOREVER !

Edited March 18, 2008 by zen archer

[Swinging Swede]

I've just been digging around in the Ellington section at Amazon. Has anyone else noticed that the Columbias are disappearing? Uptown, Black, Brown and Beige, Count Meets Duke, Blues in Orbit, Piano in the Foreground- they're only available from marketplace sellers. And Thunder's 'not in stock'.

Is Sony deleting Ellington or are there yet more remasters on the horizon?

These are (or have recently been) available from dustygroove for $5.99. Presumably they are all being deleted.

In fact, I wondered if Columbia was busy deleting its entire non-Miles jazz CD catalog.

Actually, truebluemusic.com has recently had several of the Miles Davises on their deletions list. Maybe Columbia is deleting its entire jazz catalogue, period.

[sjarrell]

But they're reissuing some Monk soon. Weird.

[zen archer]

Just got an email from Newbury Comics about this dvd , released today $13.99

Norman Granz Presents Duke: The Last Jam Session (2008)

This new two-disc set, the latest addition to the Norman Granz collection, brings together two of the greatest names in jazz: Duke Ellington & Ella Fitzgerald. The first disc sees Duke performing live in the South of France with Ella Fitzgerald as his special guest and the second disc contains the previously unseen footage of Duke Ellington in one of his last ever live performances jamming with Joe Pass, Ray Brown and Louie Bellson.

TRACK LISTING

DISC ONE: Duke Ellington At The Côte d'Azur with Ella Fitzgerald & Joan Miró 1) The Opener 2) Such Sweet Thunder 3) Medley: Black And Tan Fantasy/Creole Love Call/The Mooche 4) Kinda Dukish 5) The Shepherd 6) The Old Circus Train Turn-Around Blues 7) La Plus Belle Africaine 8) Satin Doll 9) Something To Live For 10) Jazz Samba 11) Things Ain't What They Used To Be

DISC TWO: Duke: The Last Jam Session 1) The Brotherhood 2) Just Squeeze Me 3) Carnegie Blues 4) The Hawk Talks 5) Prelude To A Kiss 6) Cotton Tail 7) Everything But You 8) Love You Madly 9) Fragmented Suite For Piano & Bass

Bonus Features

Disc One: Nat Hentoff presents Duke & Ella / Photo Gallery / Portraits by David Stone Martin.

Disc Two: The last ever interview with bass player Ray Brown.

[Chalupa]

Happy Birthday Sir Duke.

[EKE BBB]

The Atlantic Online brings back an old article on Duke Ellington "the man", written by Irving Townsend and originally published in The Atlantic Monthly (1975):

Ellington in Private

Few men so eloquently "wordy" have ever revealed so little of themselves to the world as did Duke Ellington. As some men hide behind public silence, he hid behind public phrases to build the walls around him ever higher.

by Irving Townsend

DUKE ELLINGTON and I faced each other alone for the first time in a tent in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1956. He was waiting go on stage to play at George Wein's Newport Jazz Festival. It was an appearance that Ellington had his doubts about, and with good reason; an appearance important to him, and therefore one for which he had carefully prepared. He had not been drawing large audiences. The lucrative college dates had been going to the Brubeck Quartet, Miles Davis, and Erroll Garner. The Basie band was riding high. The jazz impressario Norman Granz, Duke believed, was ignoring him in favor of Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. Even George Wein was not sure enough of Ellington's drawing power to make him the star attraction.

Ellington the composer was also in limbo. His best writing was, according to his ever-present critics, fifteen years behind him, and he was reminded of it wherever he went. All anybody wanted to hear was "Sophisticated Lady" and "Mood Indigo." Jazz writers reminisced in print about the old band. They lamented the loss of Cootie Williams and "Tricky Sam"; of Barney Bigard and Lawrence Brown; of Ben Webster. They blasted the pyrotechnics of Cat Anderson and the trifles Ellington called his latest compositions.

Also, and unfortunately for me since I represented Columbia Records, Ellington was not feeling kindly toward record companies. His years of hits during the big-band days were long gone. His last Columbia contract had produced neither sales nor distinguished albums, and record executives sought only new versions of the same old tunes. He was anxious to record Night Creature, a work written and scored for a symphony orchestra and the Ellington band, but the project was too expensive. No record company wanted Ellington plus a hundred men playing music "out of his category," which, of course, was jazz.

(...)

>>>FULL ARTICLE HERE<<<

[EKE BBB]

Another one, this time written by Francis Davis and published in The Atlantic Monthly, August 1987:

Large-Scale Jazz

The action today is in composing, not improvising

by Francis Davis

JAZZ scripture insists that composition is a frill, at best a springboard to improvisation and at worst an obstruction to it. But jazz scripture also insists on progress, and in the past few years improvisers have been retracing their steps and composers have been the ones breaking new ground--writing formally ambitious works that, while not eschewing improvisation altogether, relegate it to second place and demand more rigorous self-editing by improvising soloists. Many of these composers are rejecting jazz's traditional isolationism to collaborate with poets, choreographers, and classical musicians. X, the Anthony Davis opera about the life of Malcolm X, presented by the New York City Opera last fall, is unique only in that it got funded--there could be other Xs waiting to happen, by Ornette Coleman, Abdullah Ibrahim, and Henry Threadgill, all of whom have described plans for grand initiatives. Other contemporary composers who are thinking big--if only in terms of thinking orchestrally, even when they are able to hire just six or seven players--include Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton, John Carter, Joseph Jarman, Leroy Jenkins, Steve Lacy, Roscoe Mitchell, Butch Morris, James Newton, Errol Parker, George Russell, Leo Smith, Cecil Taylor, Edward Wilkerson, the members of the World Saxophone Quartet (Hamiet Bluiett, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake, and David Murray), and the String Trio of New York (Billy Bang, James Emery, and John Lindberg). But if one accepts the premise that composition is the key element in jazz in the 1980s, the decade's central figure is not any of these but Duke Ellington, who died in 1974.

Ellington's influence has never been greater. Typed as a "jazz" composer only by circumstance of race, he spent his career chafing at the restrictions of jazz, much as his spiritual descendants are chafing now. His scope was enormous. In addition to ballads even shapelier and riffs even more propulsive than those expected of a swing-era big-band leader, his portfolio included tone poems, ballet suites, concerto-like miniatures for star sidemen, sacred music, topical revues, film scores, and extended jazz works unparalleled until very recently and classifiable only as modern American music. He even wrote a comic opera: Queenie Pie, the trifling but winsome score he was working on for public television at his death, was finally staged last fall in Philadelphia and Washington. The son of working people, who dared to imagine himself in top hat and tails, an experimentalist who courted and won popular acceptance, Ellington was one of America's greatest composers, regardless of idiom. He was also the most quintessentially American, in the way that he effortlessly negotiated the distance between popular culture and the fine arts, the dance floor and the concert hall.

(...)

>>>FULL ARTICLE<<<

[EKE BBB]

And yet another, by David Schiff (The Atlantic Monthly, January 1995):

Built Pieces

Like Igor Stravinsky, Duke Ellington was

a brilliant assembler of other people's music

by David Schiff

THE relationship between jazz and "serious" music has been a touchy subject for seventy years. Critics have portrayed jazz as either a primitive folk music or the real classical music of this century. Throughout his life Duke Ellington found himself right in the middle of this controversy. He played his music at the Cotton Club and at Carnegie Hall. Where did it belong? The true home for Ellington's music has yet to be determined, but a steady outpouring of new recordings and criticism allows us to achieve a fresh view of his vast legacy.

Mark Tucker's Duke Ellington Reader (1993)--a 500-page anthology of writings about the Duke, the contents of which are illuminating, sobering, maddening, and occasionally inspiring--documents a mixed history of appreciation and incomprehension behind the current movement to elevate Ellington to the highest ranks of twentieth-century composers. This status is assumed by the Smithsonian Institution in its exhibition "Beyond Category: The Musical Genius of Duke Ellington," which is in the midst of a three-year tour of the country, and in a pedestrian 1993 biography by the curator of the exhibit, John Edward Hasse.

The Smithsonian acquired a huge collection of Ellington material from the composer's family in 1988. It should keep musicologists busy for the next several centuries. Neither the exhibit, which seems aimed at the very young, nor Hasse's biography, which reads like a coffeetable book, reveals any surprising new insights into the man or the music. No matter: the music is what counts, and with every passing month new Ellington CDs appear, covering his entire recording career, from 1923 to 1973.

Yet despite the musical evidence, Ellington remains controversial. In his 1987 biography of Ellington the curmudgeonly critic James Lincoln Collier raised the question of whether Ellington should be considered a composer at all, on the grounds that he "rarely wrote out a composition in complete form" and that so many of the works were composed collaboratively. In his biography Hasse questions Collier's evaluation of Ellington. But Hasse does lend considerable substance to the charge that many of Ellington's compositions were in fact written by or with others--a situation not always accurately reflected in the copyright.

(...)

>>>FULL ARTICLE<<<

[EKE BBB]

You can now order Ellington in London 1958, the 2 CDs set issued by the Ellington 2008 Conference people, with the concert at Gaumont State, October 25, 1958, previously available only as a double LP (limited edition from the Ellington '88 Conference).

Ellington 2008 Conference website

[paul secor]

The Atlantic Online brings back an old article on Duke Ellington "the man", written by Irving Townsend and originally published in The Atlantic Monthly (1975):

Ellington in Private

Few men so eloquently "wordy" have ever revealed so little of themselves to the world as did Duke Ellington. As some men hide behind public silence, he hid behind public phrases to build the walls around him ever higher.

by Irving Townsend

DUKE ELLINGTON and I faced each other alone for the first time in a tent in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1956. He was waiting go on stage to play at George Wein's Newport Jazz Festival. It was an appearance that Ellington had his doubts about, and with good reason; an appearance important to him, and therefore one for which he had carefully prepared. He had not been drawing large audiences. The lucrative college dates had been going to the Brubeck Quartet, Miles Davis, and Erroll Garner. The Basie band was riding high. The jazz impressario Norman Granz, Duke believed, was ignoring him in favor of Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. Even George Wein was not sure enough of Ellington's drawing power to make him the star attraction.

Ellington the composer was also in limbo. His best writing was, according to his ever-present critics, fifteen years behind him, and he was reminded of it wherever he went. All anybody wanted to hear was "Sophisticated Lady" and "Mood Indigo." Jazz writers reminisced in print about the old band. They lamented the loss of Cootie Williams and "Tricky Sam"; of Barney Bigard and Lawrence Brown; of Ben Webster. They blasted the pyrotechnics of Cat Anderson and the trifles Ellington called his latest compositions.

Also, and unfortunately for me since I represented Columbia Records, Ellington was not feeling kindly toward record companies. His years of hits during the big-band days were long gone. His last Columbia contract had produced neither sales nor distinguished albums, and record executives sought only new versions of the same old tunes. He was anxious to record Night Creature, a work written and scored for a symphony orchestra and the Ellington band, but the project was too expensive. No record company wanted Ellington plus a hundred men playing music "out of his category," which, of course, was jazz.

(...)

>>>FULL ARTICLE HERE<<<

Thanks for posting this.

[BruceH]

You can now order Ellington in London 1958, the 2 CDs set issued by the Ellington 2008 Conference people, with the concert at Gaumont State, October 25, 1958, previously available only as a double LP (limited edition from the Ellington '88 Conference).

Ellington 2008 Conference website

...But you have to pay in pounds? What's up with that?

[BruceH]

I've just been digging around in the Ellington section at Amazon. Has anyone else noticed that the Columbias are disappearing? Uptown, Black, Brown and Beige, Count Meets Duke, Blues in Orbit, Piano in the Foreground- they're only available from marketplace sellers. And Thunder's 'not in stock'.

Is Sony deleting Ellington or are there yet more remasters on the horizon?

These are (or have recently been) available from dustygroove for $5.99. Presumably they are all being deleted.

WTF????

Well, perhaps I shouldn't be very surprised. Perhaps one of these days they'll come out with a corrected Such Sweet Thunder (but I'm not holding my breath.)

[papsrus]

WTF????

Well, perhaps I shouldn't be very surprised. Perhaps one of these days they'll come out with a corrected Such Sweet Thunder (but I'm not holding my breath.)

Enlighten me.

[medjuck]

WTF????

Well, perhaps I shouldn't be very surprised. Perhaps one of these days they'll come out with a corrected Such Sweet Thunder (but I'm not holding my breath.)

Enlighten me.

Well the liner notes spend a lot of time discussing a famous take of "Up and Down" that they left off the cd. It can be found on a cd celebrating Ralph Ellison.

[BruceH]

WTF????

Well, perhaps I shouldn't be very surprised. Perhaps one of these days they'll come out with a corrected Such Sweet Thunder (but I'm not holding my breath.)

Enlighten me.

Well the liner notes spend a lot of time discussing a famous take of "Up and Down" that they left off the cd. It can be found on a cd celebrating Ralph Ellison.

That take was the RELEASED take; it can be found on the vinyl LP of Such Sweet Thunder. At a certain point, Clark Terry plays a bit that sounds like the line, "Lord, what fools these mortals be." The CD used an alternate in which he doesn't do this. There was a lot of screaming about this when the CD was released, so you'd think they would have corrected it in a hurry. But nope.

[papsrus]

WTF????

Well, perhaps I shouldn't be very surprised. Perhaps one of these days they'll come out with a corrected Such Sweet Thunder (but I'm not holding my breath.)

Enlighten me.

Well the liner notes spend a lot of time discussing a famous take of "Up and Down" that they left off the cd. It can be found on a cd celebrating Ralph Ellison.

That take was the RELEASED take; it can be found on the vinyl LP of Such Sweet Thunder. At a certain point, Clark Terry plays a bit that sounds like the line, "Lord, what fools these mortals be." The CD used an alternate in which he doesn't do this. There was a lot of screaming about this when the CD was released, so you'd think they would have corrected it in a hurry. But nope.

Thanks to both of you. I wasn't aware.