Search - Duke Ellington :: Masterpieces 1926-49 (Mini Lp Sleeve)

The best career overview of Ellington's early work

Michael Laprarie | Oklahoma City, OK USA | 03/07/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Compiling and issuing a definitive Duke Ellington compilation is not an easy task, simply due to the fact that Duke recorded for at least a dozen record companies from 1924 to 1940. Hence, major label reissue projects are usually lacking: buy a Columbia set and you miss all of the great early 1940's recordings with Ben Webster; buy an RCA set and you miss all of the great tunes recorded for Brunswick and Okeh during the 1930's.This set, released by the English label Proper, attempts to correct these omissions. The most rewarding part is an entire CD of rare and seldom-reissued material from 1932 through 1938, most of which was originally recorded for the Brunswick label. Great recordings of "Stompy Jones", "Reminiscing in Tempo", "Echoes of Harlem", "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue", and "Pyramid" that date from this time period are included in this set.Another problem encountered in working with Ellington material is the massive amount of reworkings and re-recordings that he produced over the years. This set includes one version of each of Duke's major early works ("East St. Louis Toodle-oo", "The Mooche", "Black and Tan Fantasy", etc.) and most of these tunes are included here in their first recorded version.The booklet and liner notes are excellent, and the discographical information is complete. As with many third-party or independent label issues, the sound quality is good overall, but varies somewhat, particularly on disc one, which sounds like it was compiled from a variety of sources. Many cuts are obviously from much older analog resissues and are included here with boxy, muffled sound and artificial reverb. The sound improves on the 1930's material, much of which sounds as though it was taken directly from clean 78 rpm sources (as all of it should have been). The sound quality of the later 1940's RCA recordings is quite good, and these were probably taken from digital transfers prepared for RCA's "Blanton/Webster Band" boxed set from the late 1980's. The varying sound quality of the set, particularly disc one, keeps me from giving this set a full 5-star rating. But these picky details should not detract most listeners from the wonderful, enduring beauty of this music. If you are looking for the best all-inclusive collection of Ellington's 78rpm-era recordings, this is probably it."

An excellent overview of Ellington's earlier work

chefdevergue | Spokane, WA United States | 12/23/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is about as coherent an overview of the earlier recordings of Ellington that you are likely to find. Ellington and his orchestra recorded with Vocalion, Okeh, Brunswick, Columbia & RCA Victor at various times, and re-recorded, several times, most of the selections found on this collection. The result is a tangle of recordings that makes the definitive Ellington collection impossible. Complicating matters is the fact that different modern corporations (Sony & BMG, for example) own the rights to the earlier record labels. Adding a truly complete Ellington collection from this period to your library might be possible in theory, but at enormous expense and effort.If you don't feel like devoting that type of time and money to such a quest, this collection is perfectly nice substitute. Reasonably well-engineered and with excellent liner notes, this collection provides a good cross-section of Ellington's work over 2 decades. The selections, for those who particularly care, are in chronological order, and are supposed to be the first recordings issued on the label in question. The notes will also tell you which original labels under which these recordings were issued, and also the band personnel for each selection.It also helps that this collection is extremely affordable. You get 4 discs containing nearly 5 hours of music for little more than 20 dollars. It is hard to complain about that. Hard-core Ellington devotees will want a more definitive collection, of course. If you are looking for more from this period, the complete collections of the Okeh & Brunswick labels are available. The Vocalion label is (I believe) available with the RCA/Victor complete collection. I particularly like the Brunswick collection, and would encourage its addition to your collection, but this collection here is an excellent place to start."

Acceptable, given the lack of alternatives

bukhtan | Chicago, Illinois, USA | 08/11/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Proper has really been burning them out recently, with box & single CD anthologies available for all kinds of prebop colossi. This set may well have given them the confidence to charge off so ambitiously.

It's one of the oddities of the reception of jazz music that Ellington's orchestral works of the Thirties have gotten pretty hard to find on CD. MCA(Decca & early Brunswick/Vocalion issues)and BMG(RCA/Victor)have kept their Ellington in press. Sony(Columbia) has perversely neglected these great sides, over the course of most of the CD era issuing only the small ensemble recordings, not quite all of them in fact, in two 2-CD sets. Their centennial year (1999) 3-CD issue "Essential Ellington", giving us SOME of those great full orchestra 78's, in excellent re-mastering, proves that they could, if they would. Maybe the fusion of BMG and SONY, now in some state of progress, will lead such a project into reality.

In the meantime, this Proper Box is about as good as you can do in one product. If you combine the SONY(Columbia) "Essential" with the BMG(RCA/Victor) excerpt from its "Centennial" edition (also three CD's) you'll get a representative sampling of Ellington, in much better sound than this. For a lot more bucks, of course.

Another option would be the three Robert Parker (Jazz Classics in Stereo) volumes, for the Twenties, Thirties, and Forties. His Thirties volume seems to me the best single CD introduction to Ellington around, and the best product for jazz fans who haven't yet connected with "big band" music. Unfortunately, these discs are now hard to find.

I'm not sure where Proper got the music they've put on this set. I'm afraid I'd have to class the sound as second rate. Some of these sides, in fact, just don't come through here. "Azure", for instance, sounds like someone used a noise reduction program to get rid of the music and retain the fuzz. The rest of the tracks fare somewhat better, but none are exemplary.

There are some inaccuracies in the liner notes. "Caravan", for example, is discograph'ed as the orchestral version, but is actually the small ensemble recording, by the way what I suspect is a burn-over from the SONY set of small band recordings, to judge by the heavy noise reduction that so strongly resembles that used on that product.

Overall, a mediocre product by one of 2nd or 3rd tier re-issue outfits taking advantage of the 50-year lapse in copyright. But what are you going to do? This is the only place, for example, that you can find the '37 recordings of "Dimuendo & Crescendo in Blue", other than on the Chronogical Classics from France. Ditto for "Azure". Let's hope that the behemoth issuing from the merger of BMG & SONY gets on the ball. Does anybody know what they're calling themselves? "Axis.com", maybe?"