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Ellington At Newport
''Ellington at Newport'' is a 1956 live jazz album by Duke Ellington and his band of their 1956 concert at the Newport Jazz Festival, a concert which revitalized Ellington's flagging career. Jazz promoter George Wein describes the 1956 concert as "the greatest performance of llington'scareer... It stood for everything that jazz had been and could be." It is included in the book ''1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die'', which ranks it "one of the most famous... in jazz history". The original release was partly recreated in the studio after the Ellington Orchestra's festival appearance. Ellington released a follow-up album also recorded at the Newport Jazz Festival, ''Newport 1958'', two years later. In 2022, the album was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Context Many big bands folded by the mid-1950s, but Ellington kept his band working, occa ...
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Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem. A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington wrote or collaborated on more than one thousand compositions; his extensive body of work is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, and many of his pieces have become standards. He also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, such as Juan Tizol's " Caravan", which brought a Spanish tinge to big band jazz. At the end of the 1930s, Ellington began a nearly thirty-year collaboration with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his writing and arranging companion. With Strayhorn, he composed multipl ...
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Newport 1958
''Newport 1958'' is a 1958 album by Duke Ellington, recorded at the Newport Jazz Festival of that year and later in the Columbia recording studio. It was released two years after ''Ellington at Newport'', the 1956 album that led to Ellington's career resurgence. The original album, ''Newport 1958'' and the French Columbia CD #COL 468436 2 are mostly studio re-recordings of numbers performed at Newport. There is also dubbed in applause and crowd noise from Newport. During this time, Duke was frequently re-recording pieces that were performed live in the studio to be included on "live" albums. This was because he felt the live performances were not up to his standards. Only the tracks, "Just Scratchin' the Surface" and "Prima Bara Dubla" are from Newport on the original album. The double CD is all the music performed at Newport on July 3, 1958. The third CD was issued by Mosaic Records and contains all of the original album, minus the dubbed in crowd noise and applause. It also con ...
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Paul Gonsalves
Paul Gonsalves ( – ) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist best known for his association with Duke Ellington. At the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival, Gonsalves played a 27-chorus solo in the middle of Ellington's "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue," a performance credited with revitalizing Ellington's waning career in the 1950s. Biography Born in Brockton, Massachusetts, to Cape Verdean parents, Gonsalves' first instrument was the guitar, and as a child he was regularly asked to play Cape Verdean folk songs for his family. He grew up in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and played as a member of the Sabby Lewis Orchestra. His first professional engagement in Boston was with the same group on tenor saxophone, in which he played before and after his military service during World War II. He also played with fellow Cape Verdean Americans in Phil Edmund's band in the 1940s. Before joining Duke Ellington's orchestra in 1950, he also played in big bands led by Count Basie (1947–1949) and Di ...
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Diminuendo And Crescendo In Blue
"Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" is a jazz composition written in 1937 by Duke Ellington and recorded for the first time on May 15, 1937 by the Duke Ellington Orchestra with Wallace Jones, Cootie Williams (trumpet), Rex Stewart (cornet), Barney Bigard (clarinet), Johnny Hodges, Otto Hardwick (alto saxophone), Laurence Brown, Joe Nanton (trombone), Harry Carney (clarinet, baritone saxophone), Sonny Greer (drums), Wellmann Braud (bass), Freddie Guy (guitar), and Duke Ellington (piano). No tenor saxophone was present in this recording section, nor in "Crescendo in Blue," which was recorded the same day. In its early form, the two individual pieces, "Diminuendo in Blue" and "Crescendo in Blue," were recorded on opposite sides of a 78 rpm record. The 1956 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival revitalized Ellington's career, making newspaper headlines when seated audience members chaotically began rising to dance and stand on their chairs during Paul Gonsalves's tenor saxophone solo ...
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Day In, Day Out (1939 Song)
"Day In, Day Out" is a popular song with music by Rube Bloom and lyrics by Johnny Mercer and published in 1939. Background According to Alec Wilder the song, 56 measures long, has a wonderful, soaring melodic line, free from pretentiousness, but full of passion and intensity which is superbly supported by the lyrics. Although the catch phrase "day in—day out" sounds like a dull routine, Mercer uses exotic images to contrast with the boring sound of the phrase. Recordings The song has been recorded by numerous artists. *Helen Forrest with Artie Shaw and his Orchestra – ''Bluebird Records 78 rpm single'' (1939) * Helen Ward with Bob Crosby and his Orchestra (1939) – a #1 hit on the Billboard charts *Horace Silver – ''Horace Silver Trio'' (1953) *Frank Sinatra – '' The Point of No Return'' (Expanded Edition 2002 – Song recorded April 4, 1953), '' Come Dance with Me!'' (1959), ''Nice 'n' Easy'' (1960), '' Sinatra & Sextet: Live in Paris'' (1994) * Stan Levey Sextet with D ...
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Sophisticated Lady
"Sophisticated Lady" is a jazz standard, composed as an instrumental in 1932 by Duke Ellington. Background Additional credit is given to publisher Irving Mills whose words were added to the song by Mitchell Parish. The words met with approval from Ellington, who described them as "wonderful—but not entirely fitted to my original conception". That original conception was inspired by three of Ellington's grade school teachers. "They taught all winter and toured Europe in the summer. To me that spelled sophistication." Lawrence Brown, the trombone player in Ellington's band at the time, claimed that he was responsible for the main hook in the A section of the tune. Ellington paid him $15 for his contribution, but he was never officially credited. Duke Ellington and His Orchestra introduced "Sophisticated Lady" in 1933 with an instrumental recording of the song that featured solos by Toby Hardwick on alto sax, Barney Bigard on clarinet, Lawrence Brown on trombone and Ellingto ...
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Harry Carney
Harry Howell Carney (April 1, 1910 – October 8, 1974) was a jazz saxophonist and clarinettist who spent over four decades as a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra. He played a variety of instruments but primarily used the baritone saxophone, being a critical influence on the instrument in jazz. Early life Carney was born on April 1, 1910, in Boston, Massachusetts. In Boston, he grew up close to future bandmate Johnny Hodges. Carney began by playing the piano at age seven, moved to the clarinet at 14, and added the alto saxophone a year later. He first played professionally in clubs in Boston. Early influences on Carney's playing included Buster Bailey, Sidney Bechet, and Don Murray. Carney also reported that, for his baritone saxophone playing, he "tried to make the upper register sound like Coleman Hawkins and the lower register like Adrian Rollini". Later life and career After playing a variety of gigs in New York City at the age of 17, Carney was invited to join the ...
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Suite (music)
A suite, in Western classical music and jazz, is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral/ concert band pieces. It originated in the late 14th century as a pairing of dance tunes and grew in scope to comprise up to five dances, sometimes with a prelude, by the early 17th century. The separate movements were often thematically and tonally linked. The term can also be used to refer to similar forms in other musical traditions, such as the Turkish fasıl and the Arab nuubaat. In the Baroque era, the suite was an important musical form, also known as ''Suite de danses'', ''Ordre'' (the term favored by François Couperin), ''Partita'', or ''Ouverture'' (after the theatrical " overture" which often included a series of dances) as with the orchestral suites of Christoph Graupner, Telemann and J.S. Bach. During the 18th century, the suite fell out of favour as a cyclical form, giving way to the symphony, sonata and concerto. It was revived in the later 19th century, but in a ...
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Billy Strayhorn
William Thomas Strayhorn (November 29, 1915 – May 31, 1967) was an American jazz composer, pianist, lyricist, and arranger, who collaborated with bandleader and composer Duke Ellington for nearly three decades. His compositions include "Take the 'A' Train", "Chelsea Bridge", "A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing", and " Lush Life". Early life Strayhorn was born in Dayton, Ohio, United States. His family soon moved to the Homewood section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. However, his mother's family came from Hillsborough, North Carolina, and she sent him there to protect him from his father's drunken sprees. Strayhorn spent many months of his childhood at his grandparents' house in Hillsborough. In an interview, Strayhorn said that his grandmother was his primary influence during the first ten years of his life. He became interested in music while living with her, playing hymns on her piano, and playing records on her Victrola record player. Return to Pittsburgh and meeting Ellington S ...
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Take The 'A' Train
A take is a single continuous recorded performance. The term is used in film and music to denote and track the stages of production. Film In cinematography, a take refers to each filmed "version" of a particular shot or "setup". Takes of each shot are generally numbered starting with "take one" and the number of each successive take is increased (with the director calling for "take two" or "take eighteen") until the filming of the shot is completed. Film takes are often designated with the aid of a clapperboard. It is also referred to as the slate. The number of each take is written or attached to the clapperboard, which is filmed briefly prior to or at the beginning of the actual take. Only those takes which are vetted by the continuity person and/or script supervisor are printed and are sent to the film editor. Single-takes A single-take or one-take occurs when the entire scene is shot satisfactorily the first time, whether by necessity (as with certain expensive special e ...
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Tea For Two (song)
"Tea for Two" is a 1924 song composed by Vincent Youmans, with lyrics by Irving Caesar. It was introduced in May 1924 by Phyllis Cleveland and John Barker during the Chicago pre-Broadway run of the musical ''No, No, Nanette''. When the show finally hit Broadway on September 16, 1925, Nanette was played by Louise Groody, and her duet with Barker of "Tea for Two" was a hit. The song went on to become the biggest success of Youmans' career. Background Youmans had written the basic melody idea of "Tea for Two" while he was in the navy during World War I, and he used it later on as an introductory passage for a song called "Who's Who with You?" While in Chicago, Youmans developed the idea into "a song that the hero could sing to the heroine" for the musical ''No, No, Nanette''. He soon after played his composition for Irving Caesar and insisted he write the lyrics then and there. Caesar quickly jotted down a mock-up lyric, fully intending to revise it later on. Youmans, though, loved ...
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Black And Tan Fantasy
"Black and Tan Fantasy" is a 1927 jazz composition by Duke Ellington and Bubber Miley. The song was recorded several times in 1927 for the Okeh, Victor and Brunswick record labels. The song was also featured in the 1929 short film ''Black and Tan''. The Victor recording is an inductee of the Grammy Hall of Fame The Grammy Hall of Fame is a hall of fame to honor musical recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance. Inductees are selected annually by a special member committee of eminent and knowledgeable professionals from all branches of .... Recordings (1927–1942) * April 7, 1927 E-22299 issued on Brunswick 3526, Brunswick 6682, Brunswick 80002, Melotone M-12093, Polk P-9006, Vocalion 15556 * October 6, 1927 BVE-40155-2 probably unissued * October 26, 1927 BVE-40155-4 Victor 21137, Victor 24861, Victor 68-0837 (as "Black & Tan Fantasie") * November 3, 1927 W 81776-A Columbia (LP) C3L-27 * November 3, 1927 W 81776-B OKeh 40955 * November 3, 1927 W 81776-C OK ...
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