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Duke Ellington - Live at the Blue Note Audio CD

A fair review of the Duke Ellington "Live at the Blue Note" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Duke Ellington reviews here, or go back to the Duke Ellington tabs.

Duke Ellington Band: Duke Ellington
Title: Live at the Blue Note
Rating:
Release Date: 1994-05-31
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Take the "A" Train 2: Newport Up 3: Haupe [Polly's Theme] 4: Flirtibird 5: Pie Eye's Blues 6: Almost Cried 7: Duael Fuel (Dual Filter) 8: Sophisticated Lady 9: Mr. Gentle and Mr. Cool 10: Gato 11: C Jam Blues 12: Tenderly 13: Honeysuckle Rose 14: Drawing Room Blues 15: Tonk 16: In a Mellow Tone 17: All of Me 18: Things Ain't What They Used to Be 19: Jeep's Blues 20: Mood Indigo 21: Perdido 22: Satin Doll 23: Disarming Visit by June Christy & Stan Kenton 24: Newport Up 25: Medley: Black and Tan Fantasy/Creole Love Call/Mooche/Newport up/Sone 26: Passion Flower 27: On the Sunny Side of the Street 28: Gato

Ellington at his best
At times you can hear waiters scuffling around, dropping silverware, a pay phone ringing in the far corner, it's all there. This recording puts you right in the club. . . and so is the band. The band's dynamics comes through perfectly with lots of intimate numbers (Haupe, Sophisticated Lady, Tenderly) and a few screamers too (El Gato). It's pretty simple, if you found this page, you NEED this for your collection! No ifs, ands or buts, put it in your shopping cart and you'll thank me later.


When "Mood Indigo" begins around midnight....
They perform a widely varied programme spread out over three complete sets, and live Ellington doesn't get much sweeter than the opening of the third set, recorded round about midnight. Of the many live recordings of Duke's orchestra, this has to stand as the finest because it puts the greatest edition of Duke's band (that which remained relatively stable between 1956-67) and puts them in the intimacy of a nightclub rather than in a concert hall or festival setting. With the sounds of ice cubes tinkling in glasses and the crowd murmering, Duke sits at the piano and picks out a preamble to "Mood Indigo" in a beautiful solo performance as the band takes the stand. When the horns join in the familiar theme in a velvety ensemble, it's the loveliest sound to be heard in all of jazz. I get tingles even thinking of it. The sound quality of this recording is highly detailed, although the balance and stereo placement can seem a bit odd now and then as the entire band was apparently recorded through two overhead mikes hanging above the bandstand. This small quibble aside, the music goes down like a fine wine. If you could own only three or four Ellington CDs, this should definitely be one of them.


A Wonderful, spontaneous, live recording
One of my favorite CDs (really two CDs). Intimate, you are there in sound, and the sound quality and musicianship are unsurpassed. If you love Ellington, or Jazz, or fine music in general this is a must have imho.


Great Show - Ameteurish Recording


It's obvious that only 2 mics were used to record this performance, with some members of the band up close, and some at a distance, including Duke's piano. I wish I could report that this is a must-have disc for all Ellington fans, but the fact is you may want to take pause and consider carefully if you place a high value on sound quality. This results in a very unbalanced recording that strongly favors percussion. Oddly enough, it's a very good recording in the sense that it gives you an excellent impression of space, but unfortunately this seems to exaggerate the distance of some of the players. Duke sounds far away.

This is a wonderful performance, and I would recommend this to any Ellington completest or anybody not normally critical of sound quality, but uncompromising audiophiles may be disappointed. .


4 1/2 stars.
so many recordings on the market! what a feast for the ears awaits one when they enter ellington's world of jazz. one the best things about digging into duke ellington's discography is that it is soooo vast. personally, i have around forty ellington discs, and not a one do i regret owning. some of his recordings, like: "early ellington," "okeh ellington," "the blanton-webster years," the 1943 "carnegie hall concerts," "black, brown, and beige," "ellington at newport," and "the far east suite" are no-brainers. once you start investigating jazz, these are the ones that you hear about as essential. you can't really miss out on them, if you make any effort to read up on the music. but, because there are so many, some fine ellington albums can fall through the cracks. many great ones you shouldn't miss, but could. the 1959 release "live at the blue note" is one of those. an excellent recording of many ellington favorites played live with an exciting and fresh feel about them. johnny hodges alto sax playing is particularly wonderful here. this is a set of big band magic not to be missed. an underappreciated work in ellington's discography, if you ask me.


You can see a complete list of all Duke Ellington discography, or go back to the Duke Ellington tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.

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