*** The Duke Ellington Corner ***

[sidewinder]

2 hours ago, xybert said:

Question regarding The Queen's Suite if anyone that was around at the time gets a chance: how anticipated was it's release? Were people clamouring for it or did it just kind of come out? Was the 'backstory' widely known in the years prior to it's release? Cheers. 

I remember it coming out on the Pablo LP - it was unexpected, at least over here. I think the story was that there was one copy presented to Her Maj so although known about, it wasn’t anticipated as a public release.

It certainly got radio airplay over here but I don’t recall it being a big seller. I still have my Pablo casette of this one !

[xybert]

2 hours ago, sidewinder said:

I remember it coming out on the Pablo LP - it was unexpected, at least over here. I think the story was that there was one copy presented to Her Maj so although known about, it wasn’t anticipated as a public release.

It certainly got radio airplay over here but I don’t recall it being a big seller. I still have my Pablo casette of this one !

Cheers. So it seems like at least to the wider fandom it wasn't a holy grail in the years prior to it's release.

[sidewinder]

I recall hearing about its existence as that single Buck House copy, with the expectation that we would probably never get to hear it. Not particularly on my radar at the time though.

[JSngry]

"Single Petal Of A Rose" was first heard (by me, anyway) as performed by Ben Webster on impulse!'s  The Definite Jazz Scene Volume 1. Seemed to be a leftover from the See You At The Fair album. The liner notes say :The next offering is indeed an unexpected treat. Back in 1959 Duke Ellington composed and recorded a suite especially for the Queen of England - only one pressing was made and it was presented to Her Highness by Ellington. Called The Queen Elizabeth Suite, it included six short compositions...and so on. That was more or less the last I heard of it, believe there was mention of it  in the autobiography, but it certainly never seemed like anything that would ever surface...until it did!

I bought the Pablo album within the first week of release, and could tell from the first notes that it was going to be a permanent favorite.

I still remember that John McDonough gave it a 3.5 star review in DB and compared it to Henry Mancini in not necessarily positive terms. That was when I started to keep an eye on John McDonough as somebody whose head was not always screwed on totally straight.

 

[sidewinder]

‘Her Highness?’   

I think it got some mixed magazine reviews over here as well. Seem to remember critic Derek Jewell giving it big plaudits when it came out and also that ‘Jazz Journal’ made it one of their top releases.

[medjuck]

I think I first learned  that the record had been released when I heard "A Single Petal of a Rose" used briefly as background music in the film "Rising Sun". 

[xybert]

Interesting all round, thanks.

[Ian Bradley]

Just passing on info of a proposed Duke Ellington Conference - the 25th in the series of International Study Group conferences - which will be held at The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham, UK 25-27 May 2018. A 'Call for Papers' has been issued and further details are available here.

Many thanks!

[Dave Garrett]

 

[bichos]

can you Name the musicians in this amazing film footage? is it from a garden Party in paris???? 

 

 

 

 

Keep boppin´

marcel

[Ian Bradley]

This is the information I have managed to glean about the footage...

https://villesville.blogspot.com/2019/11/perdido-and-more.html

 

[bichos]

thanks ian bradley for this interesting and informative blogspot link!!

 

Keep boppin´

marcel

[Ian Bradley]

You're welcome! Thanks for visiting.

[Justin V]

About a year ago, I bought the Centennial box and two of the discs skipped.  I found it again at a shop last week for $200.  When I asked about the return policy, the clerk removed the store's plastic and we discovered that it was a sealed copy!  I'm ripping it and the first disc has a minor scratch, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that nothing affects play.  

Assuming everything plays okay, I'm ecstatic to finally have such an important, rewarding set.   I have to be at around 70-80 CDs of Duke's music and I feel like I am still scratching the surface.

[Ken Dryden]

19 minutes ago, Justin V said:

About a year ago, I bought the Centennial box and two of the discs skipped.  I found it again at a shop last week for $200.  When I asked about the return policy, the clerk removed the store's plastic and we discovered that it was a sealed copy!  I'm ripping it and the first disc has a minor scratch, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that nothing affects play.  

Assuming everything plays okay, I'm ecstatic to finally have such an important, rewarding set.   I have to be at around 70-80 CDs of Duke's music and I feel like I am still scratching the surface.

70-80 CDs of Duke Ellington seems so long ago, but not nearly enough at my house.

A quick count shows 167 CD releases on my shelves (including 2 & 3 CD sets in jewel boxes), plus 8 boxed sets of various size ranging up to the Complete RCA box. That doesn't include the numerous LPs.

 

[medjuck]

33 minutes ago, Ken Dryden said:

70-80 CDs of Duke Ellington seems so long ago, but not nearly enough at my house.

A quick count shows 167 CD releases on my shelves (including 2 & 3 CD sets in jewel boxes), plus 8 boxed sets of various size ranging up to the Complete RCA box. That doesn't include the numerous LPs.

 

I no longer have any Lps but I think I have as many EKE cds and box sets as you do. Not sure whether I'm bragging or complaining.  

[Chuck Nessa]

My database says 367 items (lp and cd with boxes counted by disc). I have a few eps and 45s not in the database.

About 70 lps are duplicated on cd. I have been collecting Ellington since 1960.

Sincerely, your old fart hoarder.

[jazzbo]

I've got an awful lot of Duke on cd AND on LP. And I'm not done.

[EKE BBB]

18 minutes ago, Chuck Nessa said:

My database says 367 items (lp and cd with boxes counted by disc).

 

Mine says 350. Same criteria. And some duplication, either.

[Chuck Nessa]

Some 45 rpm sides -

[medjuck]

Anybody got any'78s?   (I used to have the original BB&B release but broke both when I moved to Santa Barbara.  Kept the album cover though.)

[jazztrain]

1 hour ago, medjuck said:

Anybody got any'78s?   (I used to have the original BB&B release but broke both when I moved to Santa Barbara.  Kept the album cover though.)

Yes, I have a lot of Ellington 78s. 

[Ken Dryden]

No 78s, as I've never had anything to play them.

I've kept most of the LPs, except for those crappy live audience bootlegs that were put out years ago that were reissued on the equally crappy label Squatty Roo as CDRs.

[JSngry]

1 Brunswick Duke 78, but also one Vocalion Hodges 78 of "The Jeep Is Jumpin'" which is very much as much a treat for the eyes as for the ears, watching it go around that fast and wondering where they were putting all that music, there was so much happening so rapidly, surely this was not a three minute 78!

[bichos]

13. april 1939: duke and his orchestra disembarks in copenhagen:

https://www.danmarkpaafilm.dk/embed/68681/L2tsaXAvZHVrZS1lbGxpbmd0b24tYW5kLWhpcy1vcmNoZXN0cmE%3D

 

keep boppin´

marcel