VA - Golden Jazz Box: The Six Best Albums From The Six Best Jazzmen (6 CD, 2015) [FLAC]

 

Son of the Blues, Jazz is one of the deepest expressions in music. With improvisation as its foundation, the genre includes multiple artists that are embedded in gold letters in the history of popular music. Golden Jazz Box is a celebration of that legacy, presenting the 6 best albums of each one of the genre's biggest icons: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Bill Evans and Duke Ellington.

Golden Jazz Box works as a true musical encyclopedia, the definitive collection of these wonderful singers in one six-CD box. Golden Jazz Box is a fantastic album, suitable for any moment and mood and an opportunity to get closer to these timeless artists.

Duke Ellington - The Complete Capitol Recordings (1953-1955) [5 CD, 1995/FLAC]

 Historians and some Duke Ellington fans look askance at the brief period he spent on Capitol Records (1953-55). This was a hectic period in jazz, with bebop in the near-view, hard bop coming along as well, and the big band was considered by many to be a relic of bygone eras. Yet Ellington persevered, and not without another adversity: the temporary loss of signature alto player Johnny Hodges, who was off leading his own bands. The resulting five CDs worth of material collected here show an Ellington band more aimed at repetition, both of its own repertoire, which had sounded better in the 1940s, and of other bands' material. Singer Jimmy Grissom does a good job with the Ellington band, without the velvety, almost spooky polish of Herb Jeffries (as evidenced on the astounding Blanton-Webster Years collection) but with a sureness that even sounds like jump blues in spots. What comes from the full-band tracks here is a clear demonstration that Ellington's outfit was sharp in the early '50s, with Juan Tizol and Ray Nance playing at a peak. But what's invaluable from this box set are the Ellington small-band tunes. The piano-trio cuts, available separately on Piano Reflections, present Duke as a keyboard polymath, dropping modernist touches in his spacing and phrasing and still managing a great deal of coloristic depth. And then there are the totally startling long blues tunes with Ellington on electric piano. Preeminently interested in everything that seemed musically possible, Ellington makes the tunes shine. This collection serves as a long-form rebuttal to all the naysayers who scoff at the Duke's early 1950s work.

 

VA – L'Integrale Jazz (10 CD, 2010)

 

Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Glenn Miller, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Sarah Vaughan, Sidney Bechet, Bessie Smith and many more...

 

Duke Ellington - Never No Lament: The Blanton-Webster Band [3 CD, 2003]

Never No Lament: The Blanton-Webster Band is a 2003 three-disc compilation combining the master takes of all the recordings by Duke Ellington's Orchestra during the years of 1940 to 1942 with an additional nine tracks, including five alternative takes and four new masters. While essentially an expanded re-release of 1990s The Blanton–Webster Band, the packaging, sound and updated notes make this, according to Allmusic, "truly worth either an initial investment or reinvestment". All About Jazz: New York noted that these performances, from what is often considered "the band in its prime", "not only set the standard for big bands and jazz orchestras, but created an ideal near insurmountable to improve upon". The Penguin Guide to Jazz selected this compilation as part of its suggested "Core Collection."

Bassist Jimmy Blanton was only with the Ellington orchestra for two years, retiring in 1941 due to tuberculosis, and dying the following year at the age of 23. Despite this compilation's "Blanton-Webster Band" subtitle, Blanton does not appear on the final 17 tracks of the collection, having been replaced on bass by Alvin "Junior" Raglin. 

Verve Jazz Masters series Vol. 1-10

 

Jazz Masters is a series of mainly single artist compilations released by Polygram/Verve between 1994 and 1996. The compilations collect material that was originally released on Verve or on one of the labels that became part of the Polygram group. The 20th and 60th releases in the series were various artist collections.

VJM 1 - Louis Armstrong

VJM 2 - Count Basie

VJM 3 - Chick Corea

VJM 4 - Duke Ellington

VJM 5 - Bill Evans

VJM 6 - Ella Fitzgerald

VJM 7 - Erroll Garner

VJM 8 - Stan Getz

VJM 9 - Astrud Gilberto

VJM 10 - Dizzy Gillespie

Duke Ellington - Original Album Series (5 CD, 2009/FLAC)

 

DISC 1 WILL BIG BANDS EVER COME BACK?

DISC 2 JAZZ VIOLIN SESSION

DISC 3 WALT DISNEY'S MARY POPPINS

DISC 4 ELLINGTON '65

DISC 5 ELLINGTON '66

 

 

Duke Ellington - Original Album Classics (3 CD, 2011/FLAC)

 

CD1 - Such Sweet Thunder (1957) 

CD2 - Far East Suite (1966) 

CD3 - And His Mother Called Him Bill (1967)

Duke Ellington - Live and Rare (3 CD, 2002/FLAC)

 Many of this three-CD set's tracks are available elsewhere, excepting three previously unreleased performances from the 1968 Newport Jazz Festival announcement party, long-unavailable recordings made specifically for Reader's Digest (plus some unreleased alternate takes), as well as unissued rehearsals for the bandleader's guest appearance with Arthur Fiedler & the Boston Pops. The press party is a noisy affair and the recording quality is hardly polished, as the crowd can't seem to shut up during Ellington's rollicking "Sweet Fat and That," "Satin Doll," and "Carolina Shout" (erroneously credited to Ellington instead of James P. Johnson), which is suddenly broken off by the pianist, who seems to be a tad rusty. The Eastbourne tracks represent the band in its decline; although veterans Harry Carney and Russell Procope were still around, the lack of many other star soloists is noticeable, and although there are some excellent musicians present (Johnny Coles, Harold Ashby, and Harold Minerve, to name a few), the band is clearly running out of steam. The music from the 1965 Pittsburgh Jazz Festival, featuring Ellington in a duet with Earl Hines, a solo performance, and one song with a rhythm section, has been reissued more than once. The Reader's Digest sessions are rather conservative, trying not to overwhelm the neophyte jazz fans the magazine was likely targeting; the music is pleasant with some good solos, but rather bland compared to typical Ellington dates. The Tanglewood concert with Fiedler is enjoyable, though the decision to intersperse excerpts of Ellington's prerecorded responses to a promotional interview between songs is a bit odd, with the bandleader actually digressing into talking about his weight problem. Put it all together and you have a set that may appeal to the die-hard Ellington collector, though it is hardly essential for most jazz fans.

Duke Ellington - The Reprise Studio Recordings (5 CD, 1999/FLAC)

 Not much has been said about Duke Ellington's Reprise Records period, and even less that's enthusiastic, mostly owing to the fact that his output there ran between two extremes: dazzlingly inventive conceptual pieces juxtaposed with re-recordings of classic big-band material, and pop-jazz efforts built around covers of current popular songs. Amid that wildly divergent body of work, it's no surprise that the live material from The Great Paris Concert and Ellington's Greatest Hits eclipsed much of his Reprise studio work. Thus, this five-CD box is the first opportunity that most listeners will have had to assess the music properly.

Duke Ellington - The Complete 1936-1940 Variety, Vocalion and Okeh Small Group Sessions (7 CD, 2006/FLAC)

 

In 1936 Duke Ellington had been leading a big band for a little more than 10 years and he was an international star, possibly the highest-paid black entertainer in the United States. At this point he undertook a series of small-group sessions. Some of the standout tracks: "Tough Truckin'," "Indigo Echoes," "Love in My Heart," "Pyramid" "Chasin' Chippies" and "Delta Mood."

None of them are very famous; most are based on the templates of better-known Ellington songs. They are all marked by Ellingtonian arrangement methods, and in many places the band just flies. Most of these weren't issued as Ellington records. The most prominent of his sidemen -- Johnny Hodges, Cootie Williams, Barney Bigard -- were listed as bandleaders; on one session, the trumpeter Rex Stewart, new to the Ellington organization, was drafted as leader. (He ended up spending nine years with the band.) Why did this happen? To keep great, underpaid, underrecognized musicians with him for the long haul, Ellington needed strong diplomatic skills. And, it seems, making cheaper list-price records that could be aimed more directly at jukeboxes was also a factor. A hit kept the experiment going: "Caravan," from 1936, the first and very widely heard version of it.

Ellington's music tends to be consumed on CD these days either by canonical collections of his early music or by his later, more carefully programmed LPs; this is a giant serving of early work, with unreleased alternate takes, offering the real truth from a great period of a great band.

Duke Ellington - 1932-1940 Brunswick, Columbia and Master Recordings [11 CD, 2008]

  

This exquisite 11-disc boxed set from Mosaic collects the complete output of Duke Ellington's orchestra on three labels - Brunswick, Columbia, and Master - for an eight-year span from 1932-1940.

After achieving youthful acclaim in Washington, and making a successful move to New York fronting (at first) small groups, Duke Ellington entered the 1930s with an expanded line-up and an increasingly creative approach to composing. Weekly radio broadcasts and swank guests in the audience spread the word; Hollywood noticed his marquee smile and musical brilliance; and the orchestra began touring extensively, including trips to Europe. His fame and popularity were on the rise.

But more importantly, Ellington entered the '30s having perfected his method of using the group to experiment with arranging and orchestrating. Ensconced at the Cotton Club in New York at the end of the previous decade, Ellington catered to a lot of musical interests and needs - he played for the dancers, and for the jazz lovers. He relied on ideas from his musicians, and wrote for them as individuals rather than as anonymous section players. With all that work and a line-up of marvelous, distinctive musical voices, Ellington began the most creative period of his life.

Duke Ellington - The Centennial Edition: Complete RCA Victor Recordings 1927-1973 [24 CD, 1999/FLAC]

 

It is only fitting that the greatest figure in 20th-century popular music is the subject of this most wondrous box set. Across 24 discs, the majesty and unparalleled genius of Duke Ellington is on vivid display. Listening to the box from start to finish in chronological order, you discover a composer, bandleader, and pianist who consistently and daringly pushed his music ever forward. As fascinating as it is to hear his artistic progression as it unfolds, it is even more remarkable to digest these CDs out of order. During the course of 50 years, Ellington's creative wellspring gushed an amazing variety of music delivered in a multitude of different styles and settings; yet somehow, someway, it all sounds like Ellington. Whereas some artists find the blues idiom constricting, Duke saw it as a highly malleable and versatile foundation.

Duke Ellington - Happy Birthday, Duke!, Vol.1-5 [1992/FLAC]

 

The liner notes neglect to mention in what year this April 29th birthday performance was recorded, but given the orchestra's lineup and set choices, 1953 or 1954 is likely. Unlike the majority of recently-discovered live tapes, this dance at Portland's McElroy's Ballroom was professionally recorded (by the great engineer Wally Heider) and so the sound is astonishing. This five-CD series is easily the best representation we have of Ellington's early-'50s lineup in an intimate ballroom dance setting.

Duke Ellington – Jazz Party In Stereo (1959) [FLAC]

 

Jazz Party is a 1959 album by Duke Ellington and His Orchestra which contains a "formidable gallery of jazz stars" guesting, including Dizzy Gillespie and Jimmy Rushing (formerly the vocalist for Count Basie). It featured also a 9-strong percussion section on two tracks.