LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Duke Ellington: Columbia Records
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The last disc finds Ellington engaging in projects that represented both his broad artistic interests and his willingness to challenge the status quo in the recording industry. "Star-Crossed Lovers' is taken from his 1957 recording Such Sweet Thunder which explored many of the themes prominent in the Shakespearean works, Othello, Henry the Fifth, and A Midsummer's Night Dream. "Come Sunday" is, of course, from his great work Black, Brown, and Beige, which Ellington debuted in 1943. The version contained on disc three of The Duke features the vocals of the legendary gospel singer Mahailia Jackson. Their collaboration on that track and throughout the 1957 recording of Black, Brown, and Beige is perhaps one of the greatest collaborations in all of American popular music. As Wynton Marsalis stated during one of the many events that celebrated Ellington's legacy during the past year, "Duke Ellington is America's most prolific composerof the 20th century, in both number of pieces (almost 2,000) and variety of forms.
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In 1953 Ellington recorded the album Piano Reflections (1953), on which some of his most enduring work as a pianist can be found. He subsequently earned critical success with recordings of suites, composed for concerts and records, including A Drum Is a Woman (1956), Such Sweet Thunder (1958), and The Far East Suite (1966), as well as with the motion-picture soundtrack Anatomy of a Murder (1959). A religious man, Ellington began composing liturgical works (which he called sacred concerts) in the 1960s.
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This set shows Ellington moving away from his standard repertoire and experimenting musically, much the same as the Reprise Set and Cosmic Scene set. Despite half of the tracks being studio recordings, there is a lot of excitement in this music. Keep the Ellington sets coming!!!
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