Audio CD review:
Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington - The Great Summit: The Master Takes

Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington - The Great Summit: The Master Takes

Band: Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington Title: The Great Summit: The Master Takes Rating: Release Date: 09 January, 2001 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Duke's Place 2: I'm Just A Lucky So And So 3: Cottontail 4: Mood Indigo 5: Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me 6: The Beautiful American 7: Black And Tan Fantasy 8: Drop Me Off In Harlem 9: The Mooche 10: In A Mellow Tone 11: It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) 12: Solitude 13: Don't Get Around Much Anymore 14: I'm Beginning To See The Light 15: Just Squeeze Me 16: I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good) 17: Azalea

Editoral Review On its own, though, The Great Summit needs no later chapters to justify its celebrated standing in jazz annals. For starters, The Great Summit produced not only itself, both with this Master Takes set and the two-CD Complete Sessions, but also a later summit, Count Basie and Ellington's tandem showdown, First Time. This was and is terrifically important music: Ellington is in grand form between recording the Paris Blues soundtrack and cutting ace sessions like Duke Ellington Meets Coleman Hawkins and Duke Ellington and John Coltrane in late 1962. For his part, Armstrong was on leave as well, resting up between ceaseless tours as a bona fide jazz superstar and veteran. So Ellington and Armstrong join hands, backed by the latter's band (Trummy Young on trombone, Barney Bigard on clarinet, Mort Herbert on bass, and Danny Barcelona on drums), tackling 17 of Duke's tunes. Armstrong's sweet, rolling vocal growl gives the tunes endless hugs, just as his band both cuts plump solos and then backs way off so Ellington can throw down alternately swinging and unapologetically modernist solos himself. --Andrew Bartlett .. You can see a complete list of all Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington discography, or go back to the Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington tabs