Duke Ellington - Intrinsic Explorations Of The 1960s

[mjzee]

Release date June 21:

During the mid 1960s, Duke Ellington was constantly recording his own musical ideas and projects with the hope and intent that a label would pick them up, as albums, and then commercially release them. However in some cases the projects were never fully completed in terms of an album's length of work, or were just never accepted by the labels and were otherwise left in Ellington's vault of recorded masters, as well as unmixed sessions. In this release, we explore some such works; parts of an Ellington album that was planned as a feature for trumpeter Ray Nance, a few miscellaneous studio versions of important songs he was playing out on the road, as well as a very obscure small group led by his son Mercer Ellington, featuring a very young Chick Corea on piano. The sessions range from 1962 to 1966, and they contain a whole lot of important music that Ellington fans need to hear.

[medjuck]

What?!  Who?  What's the source of this? 

[jazzbo]

It's on the small Ellingtonian label Squatty Roo. 

https://www.amazon.com/Intrinsic-Explorations-1960s-Duke-Ellington/dp/B07QLB7TRG/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Duke+Ellington+Intrinsic&qid=1556236723&s=music&sr=1-1-catcorr

[JSngry]

I have greatly enjoyed the Squatty Roo imprint's Ellington output, but it's always been live stuff, right?

I'm wondering how much of this workshop material is going to be new to commercial release?

Specifically, thinking about this:

 

 

[Ken Dryden]

Squatty Roo has been notorious for reissuing more than a few lousy audience or broadcast recordings originally put out by bootleg labels like The Old Masters. I would be leary of anything issued on the label and would doubt that the Ellington estate is receiving any royalties.

To top it off, the Squatty Roo releases I bought were CDRs with cheap, homemade single page fronts and tray cards.

 

[jazzbo]

9 hours ago, JSngry said:

I have greatly enjoyed the Squatty Roo imprint's Ellington output, but it's always been live stuff, right?

I'm wondering how much of this workshop material is going to be new to commercial release?

Specifically, thinking about this:

 

 

Not all is live, I have an early release that is studio. My guess is that this material will be previously unreleased "stockpile" items.

[JSngry]

Unless there was more than one Mercer session with Chick, that part of it has already been released. The planned session to feature Ray Nance, that's on New Mood Indigo too, at least some of it.

But if there's more than that being made available here, hey, count me in. The stockpile is the gift that seems to keep on giving!

btw - which Squatty Roo do you have that's studio? I need to get that one.

[medjuck]

This description from an Amazon review of New Mood Indigo makes it sound like it's the same recordings: 

 

This CD was put out by CBS's special project label: Signature. It is economically priced, and features cuts from four different sessions, all recorded in the 60's. One of the sessions was a project Duke never completed - an album featuring Ray Nance as a soloist, in the same vein as the album he did that featured Paul Gonsalves. That session is only made up of three tunes, with Nance singing "Jump for Joy," and a rousingly comic version of "Mack the Knife." Another session is made up of three tunes played by a sextet led by Mercer Ellington with Nance, Hodges, Carney, Louis Bellson, Aaron Bell and Chick Corea.

[JSngry]

Well, some of the same recordings at least. Maybe they have more? Or maybe it's just a sloppy product description by/for Squatty Roo. I know what Amazon says, but New Mood Indigo was put out by Bob Thiele's Doctor Jazz label first, as an LP. So already, potential for slop-info has been established.

It's that kind of a world, Squatty Roo is. But Urban Jungle is one of the most REAL later Ellington records I've ever heard. That's the one that got me to find the others, and the hunt has had rewarding results.

Just remember to, you know, wash your hands after handling.

[medjuck]

What's "Urban Jungle"?   A Squatty Roo Ellington release? 

[duaneiac]

21 hours ago, Ken Dryden said:

Squatty Roo has been notorious for reissuing more than a few lousy audience or broadcast recordings originally put out by bootleg labels like The Old Masters. I would be leary of anything issued on the label and would doubt that the Ellington estate is receiving any royalties.

To top it off, the Squatty Roo releases I bought were CDRs with cheap, homemade single page fronts and tray cards.

 

Ditto this.  I only bought one CD from them.  Never again.

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, medjuck said:

What's "Urban Jungle"?   A Squatty Roo Ellington release? 

My bad- Rugged Jungle. The band is raw, often transitional, it's often a mess. Like I said, it's real. You hear stories about Duke just trying to keep going by any means possible, trying to get a handoff to Mercer going, but not really accepting just how near his end really is, scrambling to keep it going...rugged jungle indeed. Not for people who don't like final pages (even if they do like final chapters,) but I'm of the mind that it's not over until it's over, and those last few gasps count just as much as the fullest, deepest breaths.

 

https://www.discogs.com/Duke-Ellington-Rugged-Jungle/release/6137958

if you can get it else-wise, sure. And if you can handled this stuff, then go on to THIS:

https://www.amazon.com/Last-Trip-Paris-Duke-Ellington/dp/B00F0MNFOQ

[jazzbo]

There's always an interesting vibe and feel to any period of Ellington, and a "slop" that ripples in the band that I find appealing. I have the "Last Trip to Paris." Even in the end zone Duke was involved and trying to transcend. I need to get "Rough Jungle."

[Ken Dryden]

The Paris CDR is the one I bought and it is a mess. At least one incomplete track, mediocre sound, plus the inclusion of Duke Ellington's weakest composition, featuring the worst male vocalist ever in his band, Tony Watkins, performing "One More Time (For The People)," a song Cootie Williams hated so much that he would storm off stage when it was called, according to Mercer Ellington in his bio of his father (co-written with Stanley Dance). 

 

Edited April 27, 2019 by Ken Dryden

[JSngry]

Yep.

That was The Last Days Of Duke Ellington.

Rugged.

[Shrdlu]

I saw the Ellington band in Adelaide, Australia, in 1969. For whatever reason, Cootie was in a foul mood and was rude to one of the saxophone players as he walked down to the front mike to solo. Grouchy bear.

On the subject of unreleased (by major labels) Ellington, I have a 10-CD set called "The Private Collection". This material is from the 50s and 60s, and even includes a version of the Far East Suite. Nothing substandard about this set.

[jazzbo]

The Private Collection is full of gems. Wonderful stuff.

[Ken Dryden]

I've long owned all ten volumes of the Private Collection. Even though some of this music was likely recorded during rehearsals and not intended for release, I don't recall any weak tracks. Ellington sometimes liked to try out a new piece or arrangement, or focus on individual soloists. That kind of stuff has far more appeal that various bootlegs of broadcasts or audience tapes with wretched sound quality and sloppy editing.

 

[Ted O'Reilly]

That 1973 "Live In Canada" Chinoiserie comes from a souvenir LP issued for the 1987 Ellington Society convention.

[JSngry]

I like how on that Paris thing, there's some really uncomfortable things going on with singers (Watkins is not at his best, but the female vocalist, I forget her name, WHOA, where did THAT come from?!?!?!?!) , and new guys, and the drummer not always being locked in. Overall, it's a mess. If it had been a few years earlier, it would be like, ok, well, Duke's gonna work it out like he always does, might take a year or two, time will take care of it all. But November, 1973? Six months left? It's frantic, the tension between "just keep going" and "there will no longer be the ability to go forward" and you can feel in the music that, no, Duke's not gonna work it out.

I say I like it. Ok, I like it in the sense that it's intensely real, not in the sense that it's fun. It's not fun at all. But it is powerful.