[Dixielandjazz] Duke Ellington reviewed - Buffalo News

[Robert Ringwald]

Duke Ellington: The Complete Columbia Studio Albums Collection 1951-1958 (Sony Legacy)
by Jeff Simon
Buffalo News, November 16, 2012
With the upcoming Black Friday signaling the beginning of serious gift season, the
luxurious jazz box sets coming from Sony Legacy have to be accounted treasures with
little parallel for the most dedicated jazz listeners. Despite the huge Bessie Smith
and Louis Armstrong boxes released at the same time as this (reviews of those to
come), it seems to me that this music from Ellington is the most extraordinary music
of all, full of imperishable jazz orchestral masterpieces that have never dated one
iota since release and never will (even magnificent Armstrong masterworks like "Weather
Bird" and "West End Blues" can't escape the sonic primitivism of commercial recording's
first era).
Nor can you pretend that everything on these nine discs is on the same level -- not
by a long shot. His suites "Such Suite Thunder" (from Shakespeare) and "Black, Brown
and Beige" (mostly a set of variations on his "Come Sunday" sung hauntingly and forever
by Mahalia Jackson) are on one level, but "A Drum Is a Woman" is on another lower
level entirely. By the same token, the music on the long underrated "Uptown" and
"Masterpieces" is among the greatest Ellington of any era, while "Ellington Indigos"
is merely acceptable dance band Ellington, and "Blue Rose" with Rosemary Clooney
is a permanent reminder that his taste in singers, while not uniformly impeccable,
was great often enough that it remains towering Ellington.
The least-known records here -- "Bal Masque" and the nonet, solo-filled "The Cosmic
Scene" -- are so unusual that even though they're not apex Ellington, they distinguish
the box in their own way. And when you get to the outtakes, wait until you hear Jackson
during one take of "Come Sunday" cough and mutter "oh, Jesus." The fact is that Ellington
was, by a great distance, the greatest of all composer/bandleaders in jazz history.
That means the great music in this box is irreplaceable to American music. It elevates
even the commercial toss-offs.

-30
-Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
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