So I'm reading the liner notes to Money Jungle (Ellington, Mingus, Roach) and they mention that Ellington also cut "summit" albums with Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane.

The notes say the session tapes for these have not survived, but in a way that maybe implies the albums were released at one time ... is this true? Anybody hear these?

These are masterworks!

must have's

Yep.

Any other "summit" albums worth mentioning???

Not just stuff with Ellington, but the whole gambit.

The Great Summit was Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington on Roulette (from 1961)!

Richard Nixon and Leonid Breshnev's work in this area is unparalleled.

And Duke played for both, I think.

Not during the Soviet Union tour of 71 (or was it 72?)?

That sucks.

Urgent affairs of state called Breshnev away from Duke's Moscow performance. He did, however, send his eyebrows to the concert in the spirit of goodwill ambassador-ship... yet they were seen making a polite exit before Ellignton brought the band back for it's encore.

Don't forget this one--Duke may not have met a head of state, but he did pretty well with a Count:

Brezhnev's successor Yuri Andropov was the Kremlin's resident jazz fan.
Brezhnev probably knew as much about as jazz as GWB does!

Carrie Bradshaw dated Alexandr Petrovsky until she realized that she would always come second to his light installations ...

Great! I just recently picked up the Duke/Hawk set that BMG had in their "Clearance" section for $1.99.

It's STILL available for that price, BTW!