fergus wrote:I have been listening to this one recently....
I wonder does Seán or anyone else have any insights into this album?
Some background information:
The orchestra that Ellington assembled for the recording sessions in May 1970 had changed significantly over just a couple of years. The five man trumpet section contained only two stalwarts, his son Mercer (who never played any solos) and the old and rather tried, Cootie Williams. Trumpeter, ‘Cat’ Anderson, who had been with Duke since 1946, found settled employment as a studio musician in LA. Herbie Jones his lead trumpeter and copyist had left too.
In 1968 his great saxophone section started to “fall apart”: his principal clarinet soloist and tenor saxophonist, Jimmy Hamilton, left the band and he was replaced by the rather ordinary tenor player, Harold Ashby, who went on over the next five years to contribute nothing of any value to the orchestra. Fortunately, at that time, Duke had "discovered" the saxophonist and flautist, Norris Turney and so, for the first time, Duke was able to add a new tone colour to his orchestral tonal palate: the flute. This was Turney’s first studio recording session with the orchestra and he later confessed to finding it a rather humbling experience.
The previous year, Duke had had a fierce row with his great (and extremely contrary) trombonist, Lawrence Brown and, as a result, Brown left the orchestra, never to return. Duke and Brown had known each other since 1929. Shortly thereafter Buster Cooper and bass trombonist Chick Connors left too. Duke had lost his entire trombone section. His replacement section saw the welcome return of 'Booty' Wood and the interesting inclusion of the avant garde trombonist, Julian Priester, alas he only stayed with Duke for six months before leaving to join Herbie Hancock’s Fusion Ensemble. The lovely bass player John Lamb was on the session too. Duke was able to welcome the organist, Will Bill Davis, into the studio too.
So the orchestra that Duke assembled had seen huge changes over a very short period, Duke was now 71 years old and was working with an ensemble that was, in part, unfamiliar to him. This must have been a very strange situation for him to find himself in.
New Orleans Suite
The album was received to great critical acclaim. To my ear the results are excellent. Duke went back to the roots of Jazz: New Orleans and the Blues and there is no finer statement of the Blues on the album than Johnny Hodges wonderful playing on the first track,
Blues for New Orleans. This performance represents a fitting epitaph to Ellington’s finest musician and his death two weeks later meant that Duke’s orchestra would never sound the same again. The orchestra had already lost many fine members but this was the biggest blow of all. Hodges led the saxophone section and he was one of the orchestra’s best soloists, he was a giant of Jazz and was irreplaceable, Harold Minerve's subsequent arrival was living proof of that.
I have always felt that it is to the musicians lasting credit that they performed so well on the sessions after the demise of Johnny Hodges and Gonsalves’ playing on
Blues for Bechet, written for Johnny and recorded two days after his death, is simply spine tingling, nobody could make a tenor weep better than Paul, not even Ben Webster. And in true New Orleans fashion his principal clarinet soloist, Russel Procope, soars brilliantly over the rest of the band on
Second Line.
This album, I feel, represents a nostalgic Duke looking back and paying tribute to some of the great musicians he had worked with: people like Sidney Bechet; Louis Armstrong; the gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson and his first bass player, Wellman Braud. This is Duke playing “old music” in a new vein, with beautiful arrangements written with the benefit of his 50 years experience of music-making resulting in his creating one of the finest albums in Jazz.
Six week after the last recording session Duke wrote the music for a ballet entitled, the River. He then went on to write several more suites but none were as satisfying as the New Orleans Suite.
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