Ellington At Newport, by Duke Ellington (November, 1956)

Dad's Take:

By 1956, Duke Ellington's career appeared to be on the downside. He had financial issues, and the The Duke had been deposed by The King after sinking in popularity with the rise of bebop. According to the reports I've read, by the time Ellington took the Newport Jazz Festival stage at midnight on July 7th, the crowd had diminished, and it was expected to drop off some more. But Ellington rocked the joint, in the original sense of the word. The crowd went wild, and Ellington and his orchestra had to play four encores before they could get off the stage.

The original release contained only three tracks (a more complete concert recording was released later), dominated by the Newport Jazz Festival Suite. At nearly 24 minutes in length, this is a masterpiece for any genre. And, in fact, of many genres, moving from big band swing to smoky bar room jazz and mood-drenched blues and everywhere in between. The suite was reportedly played without some of the band members, who were nowhere to be found when Ellington took the stage.

I'm not familiar enough with the vocabulary of jazz to do this one justice, but let's just say that this recording blows me away. I'm somewhat familiar with some of Ellington's earlier work, but I'd never heard this performance. This thing swings. It moves. By the time we get to the final track, Diminduendo and Crescendo (which, by the way, might have just become one of my favorite recordings ever), it even rocks. The solos are flat-out amazing, and when the whole combo is playing, it's impossible not to move with it. I'm glad nobody else can see me dig this jazz. They're likely to think I'm having a mild seizure.

At a time when the kids were taking over music, a 56-year-old big band leader regained his position at the top of the world and revitalized his sagging career with a single performance, and the record captured that early morning performance perfectly.

Or so it was thought.

As was common at the time for live records, much of Ellington at Newport is a studio re-creation recording, mixed with live performance and often supplemented by phony applause. An estimated 40% is actually live. Ellington hadn't thought the original live recordings of the under-rehearsed performance were good enough to release. This was common practice at a time when recording techniques and equipment often had trouble capturing the sound of a live performance. It's not the last time a live album in our classic album list will have been doctored in the studio. That does not change the quality of the music, though. This is a great recording, live or not.

Now that the complete concert performance is available in one set, along with the studio recordings, I'm going to have to go out and get it. I want to hear both the real live recordings and the undoctored studio recordings.

Brad's Take:


First off, the lyrics on this album are incredible! ...Dumb joke.

For real though, I've recently gotten into some of Duke Ellington's work. In fact, just a couple weeks ago, I bought "Duke Ellington Meets Leonard Feather" on vinyl at an antique store for only 2 dollars. I've been listening to and collecting a lot of jazz music lately, and it's fun seeing my dad get so into a jazz album. He and I might have to do some jazz music swapping sometime soon. I've got a nice collection going on lately.

Back to the topic, Duke Ellington rules! It's really awesome to hear the crowd go so wild for Duke (hopefully it's the real audience screaming for most of it.) It's pretty unheard of for a musician to make their diminishing career turn around and be on the top again with just one single performance. It must have been one hell of a show! YouTube and even the internet obviously weren't around so videos couldn't have been passed around all over the world or anything. It was generally all word of mouth, and that makes this even more incredible to me. If it wasn't for this historic performance, the man wouldn't have graced the August 1956 cover of Time magazine.

Like my dad said, everything on this record is top notch. The musicianship is amazing and I love hearing Duke hollering in the background during some of his bandmates' solos. Whether some parts are live or are re-done in the studio, the recordings are perfect. Even though it was after midnight when they began their second set of the night, you can feel the energy Duke and his band had, thanks to the reaction from the adoring crowd.