“HOT AND BOTHERED.” Mercer Ellington. Doctor Jazz...

“HOT AND BOTHERED.” Mercer Ellington. Doctor Jazz 40029. Recorded here last year, with several West Coast musicians joining the regulars, this is the Ellington orchestra’s first album in a decade. It’s based on a daring premise: Mercer took nine of his father’s very early compositions (1926-1936) and had them rescored for a larger orchestra. Barrie Lee Hall did a splendid job of updating and renovating the charts; his trumpet provides the most authentic solos. The results are a delightful mixture of the campy (Kenny Burrell switching from guitar to banjo for a solo on the title tune) and contemporary (Hall’s fluegelhorn in “Caravan”).

True, there are no soloists today in the Johnny Hodges-Paul Gonsalves class, but the section and ensemble passages on “Daybreak Express,” “Harlem Speaks” and “Creole Love Call” are so well performed and recorded that the result is a unique ancient modern pastiche. 5 stars.