Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. You, You Darlin'
2. Jack the Bear
3. Ko Ko
4. Morning Glory
5. So Far, So Good
6. Conga Brava
7. Concerto for Cootie
8. Me and You
9. Cotton Tail
10. Never No Lament (Don't Get Around Much Anymore)
11. Dusk
12. Bojangles
13. Portrait of Bert Williams
14. Blue Goose
15. Harlem Air Shaft
16. At a Dixie Roadside Diner
17. All Too Soon
18. Rumpus in Richmond
19. My Greatest Mistake
20. Sepia Panorama
21. There Shall Be No Night
22. In a Mellow Tone

Disc 2:

1. Five O'Clock Whistle
2. Warm Valley
3. Flaming Sword
4. Across the Track Blues
5. Chloe
6. I Never Felt This Way Before
7. Sidewalks of New York
8. Flamingo
9. Girl in My Dreams Tries to Look Like You
10. Take the "A" Train
11. Jumpin' Punkins
12. John Hardy's Wife
13. Blue Serge
14. After All
15. Bakiff
16. Are You Sticking?
17. Just A-Sittin' and A-Rockin'
18. Giddybug Gallop
19. Chocolate Shake
20. I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)
21. Clementine
22. Brown-Skin Gal (In the Calico Gown)

Disc 3:

1. Jump for Joy
2. Moon Over Cuba
3. Five O'Clock Drag
4. Rocks in My Bed
5. Bli-Blip
6. Chelsea Bridge
7. Rain Check
8. What Good Would It Do?
9. I Don't Know What Kind of Blues I Got
10. Perdido
11. C Jam Blues
12. Moon Mist
13. What Am I Here For?
14. I Don't Mind
15. Someone
16. My Little Brown Book
17. Main Stem
18. Johnny Come Lately
19. Hayfoot, Strawfoot
20. Sentimental Lady
21. Slip of the Lip (Can Sink a Ship)
22. Sherman Shuffle

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #207456 in Music
• Released on: 1990-10-25
• Number of discs: 3

From Amazon.com
These 66 songs not only represent Ellington's artistic apex, but perhaps reflect the greatest creative period by any single artist in jazz history. Ellington had already made a lasting impression on jazz by 1940, but adding writer/arranger Billy Strayhorn, young bassist Jimmy Blanton, and tenor great Ben Webster brought the band to extraordinary new heights. The new blood boosted a roster already touting Johnny Hodges, Cootie Williams (replaced by Ray Nance), Rex Stewart, Juan Tizol, and Barney Bigard. The set list reveals masterpiece after masterpiece: Ellington's "Cotton Tail," "Never No Lament," "All Too Soon," "In a Mellotone," "Warm Valley," "I Got It Bad," and "Sentimental Lady" plus Strayhorn's "Chelsea Bridge" and "Take the 'A' Train" offer a mere taste of the treasures within. --Marc Greilsamer

Customer Reviews

The best of the Ellington bands
Jimmy Blanton and Ben Webster transformed the Duke Ellington band. If the band was already the world's most sophisticated jazz ensemble, the addition of these two artists took it beyond mere sophistication, into a realm where style and art becomes indistinguishable.

Jimmy Blanton took the double bass out of its supportive background role into the forefront of the rhythm section, infecting the whole orchestra with an overpowering pulsating swing. No bass had ever had such a prominent, decisive role in any band, large or small. Ben Webster boasted one of the most instantly recognisable tenor saxophone sounds in the business: breathy, mellifluous, perpetually shaking with an impassioned romantic vibrato. He complemented the moody, velvety tone of Johnny Hodges' alto beautifully.

Most of the tunes are short, averaging around three minutes. Enduring highlights are "Ko Ko", "Cottontail" (note the swinging rapport between Blanton and Webster during the latter's solo), "Never No Lament" (with stunning solos from Johnny Hodges and Cootie Williams), "Concerto for Cootie", with fantastic playing from the trumpeter himself, "Rumpus in Richmond", "Sepia Panorama", "Blue Serge", a moody, melancholic piece, Billy Strayhorn's "Take the 'A' Train" of course, "The 'C' Jam Blues" and a host of others...There's over three hours of fantastic music.

Ellington's very best (six stars)
This collection still stands out as a prime example of how jazz (which was music, according to the Duke) and swing (which was business) could be mixed together in an amalgam that produced some of the most satisfactory musical sounds to emanate from any stylistic period. And while most "complete" editions also come with the inevitable lows of redundancy and the obligatory Tin Pan Alley dullards, this set seems happily exempt from any second rate material.
Most of the recordings show the band in its most favourable light: after years of working together, playing the demanding and often highly unusual Ellington scores, there was an unbelievable team spirit and cohesiveness, while new blood (by Blanton, Webster and, lest we forget, Billy Strayhorn) added to the already impressive roster of soloists such as Brown, Nanton and Tizol on trombones; Williams (soon to be replaced by Ray Nance) and Stewart on trumpet / cornet; Bigard, Hodges and Carney on reeds, all of such strong individual creativity that this specific orchestra ranks among the greatest of all time.
The set comes with extensive liner notes (a short synopsis of the band's history and a resumé of each featured track) and full discographical info; remastering is very good indeed.
No one who is seriously interested in jazz/swing or the history of popular music should be without this set.