Duke Ellington – The Duke Box
(Storyville, 7 CD + DVD)
Duke Box 2 begins in 1952 and picks up where the first Duke Box left off; covering his music-making right up until the autumn of 1972, less than two years before he died. This means that it is filled with a treasure trove of both studio and live recordings; such as Birdland, NYC, from 1952, Kongressaal, Munich from 1958, and Tivoli, Stockholm from 1963. Of particular interest here are the late 60 s and early 70 s studio sessions (mostly recorded in New York). As a bonus, there is a fascinating DVD of the band in action, filmed at Pathé Studios, NYC in 1962. Housed in a lid-off long box, containing a 28 page booklet crammed with unseen photos and full track annotation, and completed with liner notes by Ellington expert Brian Priestley.
CD1. Duke Ellington & His Orchestra: Duke Ellington at Birdland (Live; Birdland NYC, November 20th-24th, 1952)
CD2. Duke Ellington & His Orchestra: at Kongressaal, Deutsches Museum, Munich, (Live; November 14th, 1958)
CD3. Duke Ellington at Grøna Lund Tivoli, Stockholm (Live; June 6th 1963) CD4. Duke Ellington The Piano Player (Studio; Solo 1961-71)
CD5. Duke Ellington & His Orchestra The Jaywalker (Studio; 1966-67)
CD6. Duke Ellington: New York, New York (Studio; 1970-72)
CD7. Duke Ellington & His Orchestra Togo Brava Suite (Studio; 1971)
8. DVD: Duke Ellington & His Orchestra Pathé Studios, NYC. Jan. 9th, 1962
Etwas mehr Details via jazzmessengers.com:
The Duke Box 2 picks up the story of the great Duke Ellington band in the early 1950s and spans the next twenty years or so of a remarkable output.
If Storyville’s first „Duke Box“ reflected the dominance of the 78rpm single in the 1940s, this collection is to some extented shaped by the advent of the LP and the longer tracks it enabled and encouraged. That technological shift came in a period when Ellington would lose the three of his stellar sidemen: Johnny Hodges, Lawrence Brown and Sonny Greer. As it turned out, their replacements (Willie Smith, Britt Woodman and Louie Bellson) and other new blood only served to re-energise the band as it approached the 25th anniversary of its initial engagement at The Cotton Club. NBC celebrated the event with live „Silver Jubilee“ broadcasts, two of which appear on the first of the seven CDs in this collection.
Spanning the years in which Ellington regularly toured Europe and Scandinavia, The Duke Box 2 offers, inter alia, a rich selection of performances illustrating a tirelessly inventive musical spirit on tour with changing personnel and occasional guest artists.
A bonus DVD combines a series of short films of the Ellington band in action and despite the sound being recorded first and the performances showing the band miming, this curiosum offers a fascinating glimpse of The Duke in action, and the audio is of course technically excellent.
As a portrait of a sublime and inexhaustible musician thriving in the second half of a long and distinguished career, „The Duke Box 2“ is surely a must-have collection for all true admirers of the inimitable Duke Ellington
CD 1: DUKE ELLINGTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA AT BIRDLAND
Birdland New York, November 20th-24th, 1952
Total Time: 73:36
CD2: DUKE ELLINGTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA AT KONGRESSAAL
Deutsches Museum, Munich, (Live; November 14th, 1958)
Total Time: 66:27
CD3: DUKE ELLINGTON AT GRONA LUND TIVOLI
Stockholm (Live; June 6th 1963)
Total Time: 33:47
CD4: DUKE ELLINGTON THE PIANO PLAYER
Studio; Solo 1961-71
Total Time: 67:30
CD5: DUKE ELLINGTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA THE JAYWALKER
New York, 1966-67 (Studio)
Total Time: 76:32
CD6: DUKE ELLINGTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA NEW YORK, NEW YORK
New York, 1970-72 (Studio)
Total Time: 76:31
CD7: DUKE ELLINGTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA TOGO BRAVA SUITE
New York, 1971 (Studio)
Total Time: 72:33
DVD: 24:26
Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
Pathé Studios, New York. January 9th, 1962
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Für mich ein eindeutiger Fall, zumal ich nur „Togo Brava Suite“ bereits habe (nicht „The Jaywalker“ und die anderen Archiv-Releases mit späten Ellington-Aufnahmen). Von Gröna Lund 1963 gab es ja 2014 bereits eine Doppel-CD – ob es sich bei der CD in der neuen Box um weitere Aufnahmen oder eine Auswahl davon handelt, weiss ich noch nicht (habe auch die Doppel-CD noch nicht).
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"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #162: 8.4., 22:00; # 163: 13.5., 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba