@Walter_Mason You are absolutely correct, it’s lots of fun volleying the great Duke Ellington’s recordings.
Here is an essential collection of Ellington recordings. Back in the 1930s and 1940s most music was released as singles or collection of singles called an “album” (that’s how the term album came to be) since the long playing record had yet to be invented. In addition for several years during the Second World War there was a musician’s strike 1942–1944 musicians’ strike. Sadly these two events occurred during the time that what many considered to be Ellington greatest orchestra was in place. Subsequently Ellington’s recordings during this period were a scattershot affair and for many years were very difficult to find and even if one managed to locate a collection it was often poorly produced with inferior sound and scant information. For proof of this sad state of affairs just to try to make sense of the discogs listing for Duke Ellington, in fact I have several collections for early 1940s Ellington recordings on vinyl, some good and some not so good. Here’s one of the good ones: Duke Ellington 1941
Luckily the age of CDs brought forth several fine collections of Ellington’s recordings during this period and none of these collections is better than The Blanton-Webster Band: https://i.imgur.com/xgtCXpj.png
There may in fact be two different issues. If I remember correctly there were some very minor issues with the beginnings of a few of the tracks on the original issue (which has the cover you posted) that were fixed on the subsequent issues (the cover that I posted). Please don’t fret because the issues were/are very minor but you know how nit-picky jazz nerds can be.
Thanks Ralph for the insight on Blanton Webster. I failed to mention regarding Money Jungle that the Japanese remaster was a marked improvement over the original. Far less brittle sounding which is just great. I believe the Qobuz offering is the remaster. I’m spinning a disc on this one.
Since we are thinking about Money Jungle (thanks for TL Carrington), It seems natural to take the conversation from Duke to Charles Mingus. Hard to dispute the power of this one:
I’ve always been partial to this period of Mingus and the band is amazing:
Available on Tidal https://i.imgur.com/0m63Aem.png
Most likely my love of the 1959 recordings comes from this excellent two LP release from back in my college days (a 24bit/96kHz vinyl rip): https://i.imgur.com/dO1pIDu.png
Back in my college days Mingus and his band from the Changes One & Two recordings played at my school https://i.imgur.com/MtdcGA8.png
Several years after playing with Mingus Jack Walrath released this wonderful recording https://i.imgur.com/gsApnZM.png
Three other members of Mingus’ Changes band, pianist Don Pullen, tenor saxophonist George Adams and drummer Dannie Richmond, would go to form perhaps the best working jazz group of the 1990s - The George Adams/Don Pullen Quartet. I had the pleasure of being in the audience when they recorded this essential album. As they say one thing leads to another and another and… https://i.imgur.com/JfaVo29.png
Riding the Mingus train.
This new release by a group of some well established musicians features all Mingus compositions. Are we onto something? Available on Tidal and Qobuz (in high resolution) https://i.imgur.com/7wA1mnp.png
While exploring Qobuz this morning I happened across this interesting playlist. Note only part of the playlist is shown since it’s a screenshot.
Here is what Qobuz has to say about the playlist:
49 tracks - 04h 43m 55s - Public
Recording Engineer/Producer, Jim Anderson, has assembled a playlist of some of his favorite recordings that he feels that you’d enjoy. Happy listening. JA
