1. Such Sweet Thunder
2. Sonnet For Caesar
3. Sonnet To Hank Cinq
4. Lady Mac
5. Sonnet In Search Of A Moor
6. The Telecasters
7. Up And Down, Up And Down (I Will Lead Them
Up And Down)
8. Sonnet For Sister Kate
9. The Star Crossed Lovers
10. Madness In Great Ones
11. Half The Fun
12. Circle Of Fourths
13. Suburban Beauty
14. A Flat Minor
15. Café Au Lait
16. A Tone Parallel To Harlem (The Harlem
Suite)
17. The Controversial Suite Part 1
(Before My Time)
18 The Controversial Suite Part 2 (Later)
Duke Ellington - Piano
Billy Strayhorn - Piano (tracks 16-18)
Clark Terry, Willie Cook - Trumpets
Ray Nance - Trumpet, violin, vocal
Cat Anderson - Trumpet (tracks 1-15)
Francis Williams - Trumpet (track 16)
Harold "Shorty" Baker - Trumpet (tracks 17,
18)
Quentin Jackson, Britt Woodman - Trombones
John Sanders - Trombone (tracks 1-15)
Juan Tizol - Trombone (tracks 16-18)
Jimmy Hamilton - Clarinet, tenor sax
Russell Procope - Alto sax, clarinet
Johnny Hodges - Alto sax (tracks 1-15)
Willie Smith - Alto sax (tracks 16-18)
Paul Gonsalves - Tenor sax (tracks 16-18)
Harry Carney - Baritone sax, clarinet, bass
clarinet
Jimmy Woode - Bass (tracks 1-15)
Wendell Marshall - Bass (tracks 16-18)
Sam Woodyard - Drums (tracks 1-15)
Louie Bellson - Drums (tracks 16-18)
Such Sweet Thunder
is one of the many masterpieces composed by
Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn. Recorded
between August 1956 and May 1957, it was commissioned
for the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford,
Ontario. The work's title was taken from lines
in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "I never
heard so musical a discord, such sweet thunder".
The mention of discords is apt, since some
parts of the suite show that the composers
were extremely adventurous in the sounds they
created, including the discords which so aptly
convey the agony behind Madness in Great
Ones.
One of the strengths of Duke's
orchestra has always been his choice of musicians
with very individual voices. Such Sweet
Thunder employs this to great advantage:
using the poignant alto sax of Johnny Hodges
to reflect the tragic love story of Romeo
and Juliet in The Star-Crossed Lovers,
and the puckish mischief of Clark Terry to
depict Puck's antics in Up and Down, Up
and Down, with three pairs of instruments
representing the three sets of warring lovers
in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Another
clever touch occurs in the four pieces entitled
"Sonnets", which apparently mirror the ten-syllable,
fourteen line structure of the sonnet (I haven't
counted them all, but it seems probable).
The opening title-track is
a sturdy piece, driven along by the offbeat
clicks supplied by drummer Sam Woodyard. On
a recent Jazz Library programme on
BBC Radio 3, Clark Terry assigned the excitement
of that famous Paul Gonsalves solo at the
1956 Newport Jazz Festival down to Woodyard's
driving drumming, and Sam has always seemed
to me the ideal percussionist for the Ellington
band of this period.
Speaking of Lady Mac
(i.e. Lady Macbeth), Duke says: "We suspect
there was a little ragtime in her soul", so
this track is a jaunty jazz waltz which ends
with an ominous climax suggesting that the
lady had more than ragtime in her soul. The
Telecasters puts four evil, talkative
characters together: the Three Witches from
Macbeth and Iago from Othello,
represented by three trombones and the baritone
sax of Harry Carney. Half the Fun portrays
Cleopatra with exotic rhythm and the alluring
presence of Johnny Hodges.
The original album ended
with Circle of Fourths, in which Paul
Gonsalves works his way through every key
via the interval of a fourth, reflecting Shakespeare's
fourfold genres: comedy, tragedy, history
and the sonnets. This new CD includes three
more items (tracks 13 to 15), which the sleeve
says were originally intended for inclusion
in the suite (although W. E. Timmer's Ellingtonia
discography seems to disagree). It is difficult
to connect these to any of Shakespeare's plays
but A Flat Minor contains some very
palatable alto from Johnny Hodges and Café
au Lait has some tasty voicings for the
saxophones.
To illustrate the fact that
Ellington could also compose longer works,
this CD adds on A Tone Parallel to Harlem
(The Harlem Suite) - another Ducal
masterpiece: a vivid, loving profile of Harlem,
premiered and recorded in 1951. It lasts nearly
14 minutes and passes through numerous stages
and moods, portraying various aspects of the
area. I would rather hear the Ellington ensemble
performing this piece rather than some of
the versions which try to give it a "classical"
sheen (for instance, see my review earlier
this year of the version by the American Composers
Orchestra). It is a brilliant example of Duke's
versatility and the huge range of his composing
and orchestrating talents.
The last two tracks on the
CD - also recorded in 1951, comprise the Controversial
Suite. I am so old that I have the original
recording of this on an EP (remember those?).
To be pedantic, my EP lists Hilton Jefferson
on alto sax, replacing Willie Smith. The first
part of this suite is a slightly tongue-in-cheek
pastiche of classic jazz (jokingly sub-titled
"Before My Time"). Someone (Russell Procope?)
plays a wild soprano sax and this section
ends with a rave-up in Tiger Rag mode.
Part two ("Later") is deliberately more disjointed,
perhaps reflecting the variety or dislocation
of "modern" jazz (one commentator compares
it to Stan Kenton). It is good to have this
rare piece available on CD - probably for
the first time. But then the whole album is
a treasury of delights - proving that, however
good Ellington's work was in the early 1940s,
its quality was maintained (and, dare I say
it, developed) as he got older. Highly recommended.
Tony Augarde
CD Reviews
Essential Jazz Classics EJC 55416
