![]() ![]() The 1963 band is one of the best Ellington led. The original LPs are among my most-played Ellington recordings. For me, there is one best place to start listening to Duke Ellington: The Great Paris Concert, a double-album released on Atlantic in 1973 and recently re-released on the Collectables label as a 2-CD set with additional material, all of it recorded in concert, in Paris (and elsewhere?), in 1963. And its effort to span most of Ellington's career - with a little bit of this and a little bit of that - fails to satisfy. ![]() So where does one begin? The Ellington disc in the Ken Burns' Jazz series is a decent sampler, though at least four of its twenty selections are somewhat dubious. A further problem: the major-label reissues of Ellington's older recordings often feature horrific sound quality. The average "books and music" store offers a real mish-mash, as my dad would call it - one-off concerts of familiar retreads, unreleased studio recordings (great for me, but not a place to start), and compilations cobbled together to make a cynical buck. I'd hate to be approaching Ellington's music as a beginner in 2006. I can still remember the huge (at the time) dent those LPs made in my teenaged finances. The Integrale releases of Ellington's 1940-41 recordings are still my favorite versions - no CD version I've heard comes close to their sound quality. Best of all was the Integrale series from France, a chronological trek through Ellington's RCA work, with alternate takes no less. Back in the day, a typical Sam Goody's held LPs from all eras of Ellington's career - from the earliest 1924 recordings to 1940s radio broadcasts (releases overseen by Mel Tormé!) to all manner of concert and studio performances. When I'm buying CDs, I sometimes think how lucky I am to have begun listening to Duke Ellington when I did - about thirty years ago (though alas I caught on only after his death). ![]()
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