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Duke Ellington: Billy Strayhorn
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Duke Ellington was a major force in jazz from the 1920s through the 1960s and his work continues to be influential today. He is considered by many to be the greatest American composer. He had many hits including Take the A Train, Satin Doll, Rockin' in Rhythm, Mood Indigo, Caravan and Sophisticated Lady. Throughout the 1920s and 30s, Ellington often shared composer credit with his manager Irving Mills until they had a falling out in the late 1930s. Billy Strayhorn became Ellington's collaborator (not always credited) from 1940 until Strayhorn's death in the mid 1960s.
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Basically this is a Johnny Hodges solo album: of the eight tunes, Ellington only appears on three (Strayhorn's on piano for the rest), and wrote two and a half: Hodges contributed the same number. Hodges can sound too smooth on stomping tunes ("You Need To Rock"), but he really is damn near peerless on ballads, and the Harold Arlen standard "Let's Fall In Love" is a fine example. But he doesn't try to shoulder the whole burden: plenty of solo space is reserved for Ben Webster on tenor, Sweets Edison on trumpet, and an unusually violent Ellington ("Stompy Jones"). And in keeping with the Duke's penchant for multi-instrumentalists, Les Spann is featured on guitar and flute, and his solos on each are fluid if not overly imaginative. Very often the band is playing swing with the horns in tight unison ("Going Up"), proving that you can take the small combo out of the big band, but you can't make a satin doll out of a sow's ear: the Ellingtonian delicacy of shading is largely absent.
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In 1963, the Ellington band toured what is now called the Middle East. One result was a 1966 album of pieces inspired by the journey: music rich with disparate timbres, rhythms and sounds. Not surprisingly, composer Billy Strayhorn was behind much of it, including this tune, a feature for saxophonist Johnny Hodges and a late period gem.
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