Ellington At Newport 1956

Duke Ellington - Ellington At Newport 1956

Ellington At Newport 1956
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Music CD Cover

Artist: Duke Ellington
Edition: Music CD
Format: Live, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 1999-05-11
Music Label: Sony
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
  1. The Star Spangled Banner [#]
  2. Father Norman O'Connor Introduces Duke & The Orchestra/Duke Introduces
  3. Black and Tan Fantasy
  4. Tea for Two [#]
  5. Duke & Band Leave Stage/Father Norman O'Connor Talks About Festival
  6. Take the "A" Train
  7. Duke Announces Strayhorn's a Train & Nance/Duke Introduces ...
  8. Part I- Festival Junction [Live][#]
  9. Duke Announces Soloists: Introduces, Pt. 2 [Live]
  10. Part II- Blues to Be There [Live][#]
  11. Part III- Newport Up [Live][#]
  12. Sophisticated Lady [Live]
  13. Day In - Day Out [Live][#]
  14. Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue [Live]
  15. Announcements, Pandemonium [Live]
Music CD 2
  1. I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good) [Live][#]
  2. Jeep's Blues [Live]
  3. Tulip or Turnip [#]
  4. Riot Prevention
  5. Skin Deep
  6. Mood Indigo [#]
  7. Studio Concert [Excerpts]
  8. Father Norman O'Connor Introduces Duke Ellington/Duke Introduces ...
  9. Part I- Festival Junction
  10. Duke Announces Soloists: Introduces, Pt. 2
  11. Part II- Blues to Be There
  12. Part III- Newport Up
  13. I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)
  14. Jeep's Blues [#]

Free Music Notes for Ellington At Newport 1956

Free Music Review: Ellington at his best (and that's saying something).
Hit: 5 Stars

In 1956, Duke Ellington's career had taken a downturn. Swing was very old music, no longer well accepted, and many relics of the big band era had already disappeared. Ellington maintained his orchestra, but with several key members of the band coming and going and gigs getting leaner, things were not looking good for the future.

It was into this environment that Ellington arrived at the Newport Jazz Festival that July, and the performance is the stuff of legend. Ellington's set was reasonably well received, then during the bridge linking "Diminuendo in Blue" to "Crescendo in Blue", Paul Gonsalves stood up for his tenor solo. Gonsalves, younger than the majority of Ellington's musicians and influenced by bebop players, began blowing fiercely, a powerful, evocative, non-linear solo that grabbed everyone's attention and made heads turn. Realizing he had something going on, Ellington signalled Gonsalves to keep playing, chorus after chorus, as the crowd became more and more consumed by the music. When the piece was finally done (a nearly fourteen minute performance, the majority of which consumed by Gonsalves' solo, unheard of in swing music), the crowd was positively frenzied and Ellington came out for several encores designed to calm them down.

On the strength of this performance and a cover appearance in Time Magazine, Ellington was suddenly a hot commodity, signed a deal with Columbia, and "Ellington at Newport" became his biggest selling record of all time.

So is Paul Gonsalves' solo really that good? Well, yes, it is. He plays magnificantly, and while it's clear he's starting to run out of steam when Duke finally lets him go, the truth is that this is what makes Ellington so powerful-- he can bring forth performances from musicians that can whip a crowd into a frenzy. Truth is, there's powerful solos from any number of musicians, and I suspect had Ellington seen a crowd reaction when any of them were playing, he could have gotten the same reaction, be it Quentin Jackson's growling ("Black and Tan Fantasy"), Willie Cook (stunningly melodic and inventive on "Tea for Two"), the leader himself at the piano ("Take the A Train"), Cat Anderson's pyrotechnics ("Festival Junction") or Johnny Hodges' lyricism ("Jeep's Blues"). The crowd IS practically frenzied after Anderson takes off to the stratosphere at the end of "Festival Junction". And I don't mean this to take away from Gonsalves-- his solo really is something to behold, but it's Ellington's arrangements and inspiration that's the star here.

So what is this set? It's a chance to see a master bandleader at the top of his form, playing his orchestra as an instrument, and inspiring them to in turn inspire him.

This reissue is particularly exciting as it is the first to include the original sessions-- evidentally the tape was damaged and couldn't be salvaged in the '50s and parts of the performance were a bit less than perfect, so parts of the show were re-recorded, complete with artificial crowd noise and announcements (in many cases, the rerecordings are far superior to the less than perfect live performances, as one would suspect, but they lose some of the immediacy). This release includes the original concert from a newly found tape and some of the studio sessions augmenting it as bonus material. The sound is letter-perfect throughout-- this could have been recorded yesterday at a jazz festival and you'd scarcely hear the difference. The set also includes extensive liner notes, including the original notes included with the set and new essays and session details.

In the end, this is one of the essential jazz recordings, certainly it's a fantastic introduction to Ellington's material and work, and it's among the best of his recordings. Highly recommended.
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Ellington At Newport 1956 Poster

When Duke Ellington took his orchestra to the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956, the band was in need of an uplift, some humongous event that would revitalize its image in the wake of bebop, hard bop, and so many more jazz currents. Ellington got the lift he needed when he called "Diminuendo in Blue" with set-closer "Crescendo in Blue" tacked on the end. Tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves got the nod from Ellington to segue from "Diminuendo" to "Crescendo," and he blew doors. With one rousing 27-chorus solo, Gonsalves blew a fever into the crowd and jump-started Ellingtonia for another generation. Trouble with all this is that the living document of the Newport show is almost fully manufactured, recorded in a studio with crowd madness dubbed in. So this two-CD historical correction is an awesome addition to the centennial-era reissues on Columbia (including Anatomy of a Murder, Such Sweet Thunder, First Time: Count Meets the Duke, and Black, Brown and Beige). The producers revisited the Newport gig after four decades because they discovered an extant Voice of America tape--the one whose microphone Gonsalves blew his solo into, and the VOA tape catches the whole Newport set in its organic glory. Alternately tender with layers of brushstroke orchestration and blazing with the band's well-seasoned tightness, this new Newport is one for the generalist and the Ellington completist. It's got the revived original gig as well as the original commercial release. And they make great siblings, illustrative of the live-event charm and the music industry's dogged labors in reinventing it on record. --Andrew Bartlett

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