1. The Old Circus Train
2. Swamp Goo
3. Trombone Buster
4. Bourbon Street Jingling Jollies
5. Mellow Ditty
6. To Know You Is to Love You
7. Naidni Remmus
8. The Prowling Cat
9. Maiera
10. Thanks for the Beautiful Land
11. Charpoy
12. Portrait of Louis Armstrong
13. Girdle Hurdle
14. Sans Snyphelle
15. Woods
Duke Ellington and his Orchestra
rec. 1965-72
Direct from Ellington’s own ‘stockpile’ of recordings comes this
set of fifteen numbers first released on MusicMasters in 1991 and
now reissued on Nimbus. The earliest items come from March 1965 and
the last from August 1972. There were a variety of recording locations;
Chicago, San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles but also Milan in
the case of two songs. So the geographical and temporal spread is
quite extensive.
We start with a rocking The Old Circus Train which features
Jimmy Hamilton on tenor, wailingly imbued with the raw spirit of Ben
Webster. A typically Ducal piano introduction starts Swamp Goo
after which we’re treated to a clarinet feature for the clarinet of
Russell Procope, behind which stalks the ghost of Barney Bigard. The
band still sported its legendary personalities such as Hodges, Carney
and Cat Anderson in the earlier numbers. It was Anderson in fact who
wrote Trombone Buster for the ‘bone player Buster Cooper, whose
lusty, ultra-virile playing leaps out at one. Norris Turney tends
to be underestimated these days, but he takes a fine flute solo on
Bourbon Street Jingling Jollies which comes from the New
Orleans Suite.
It’s always good to hear Duke in the proximity of just one other
musician; as an accompanist he was a masterful provoker rhythmically
and harmonically speaking. Unfortunately he had inexplicably awful
taste in male singers and here he coaxes the über-maudlin Tony Watkins
through To Know You Is to Love You, an experience best glossed
over in sympathetic silence. Read both words of Naidni Remmus backwards
and you’ve arrived at its title: Wild Bill Davis is on organ, Turney
on flute again, whilst Paul Gonsalves is able to stretch out in his
solo. Cat Anderson hits the heights in every way except artistically
in The Prowling Cat before he deigns to take an appropriately
hot solo to redeem himself.
Another member of the brass section, Fred Stone, wrote Maiera
in which he himself plays the flugelhorn and Turney comes on with
some excitable alto. I’ve never been convinced by Rufus Jones, the
Duke’s drummer in the 1970 tracks, and his work on Thanks for the
Beautiful Land is less than subtle. Thankfully Harold Ashby’s
tenor solo is another elevated example of Websterianism still at work
in the Duke’s sax section. Cootie Williams, regrettably undermiked
on Portrait of Louis Armstrong (again from the New Orleans
Suite), still plays with fat tone and panache.
This is certainly not as important an offering as the Cornell 1948
set – the band in full cry – or the earlier Chicago or London and
New York sets, all of which have been already covered by Nimbus. This
particular selection is invariably variable, but it does have some
documentary force.
Jonathan Woolf
CD Reviews
Nimbus NI 2736
