New CD Releases Continue Ellington’s Legacy

“The first night I joined Duke (Ellington) I was confused and scared,” cornetist Bill Berry recalled recently during a panel on Ellington at the University of Colorado’s Conference on World Affairs.

“He had seven trumpet players up there! I thought, ‘Do I have the job or am I auditioning?’ The music was in disarray. I couldn’t find my part, didn’t know what to play.

“But the next night he had just four of us on trumpets, and out of that chaos came the most beautiful order. I realized I was working for a genius. Those years with Ellington were the greatest experience of my life.”

Even more than Berry’s words, however, the real testimony to the legacy of Edward Kennedy Ellington--who was born 92 years ago Monday in Washington--is that his music and influence are considered so significant in 20th-Century culture that there would be a symposium on them at a world affairs conference. The 184 other conference panels were devoted to such social issues as war, feminism and the law.

It’s no wonder, then, that within the jazz world, there’s a continuing stream of albums, books and videos by or about this uniquely gifted composer, bandleader and pianist--by far the most celebrated figure in the music’s history.

In the past two months alone, 14 Ellington albums have been released on compact disc. One--”Ellington Never-Before-Recordings, 1965-72,” on Musicmasters Records--comprises never-before-released recordings from 1965 to 1972. Four of these cuts, from the latter years of this period, are a welcome reminder of Ellington’s use of the organist Wild Bill Davis, who also contributed two compositions.

The rest of the albums help chronicle Ellington’s orchestra, from its beginnings in the late ‘20s until the maestro’s death in 1974. The earliest sounds are found on “The Okeh Ellington,” which is available on Columbia Records and features music from 1927 to ’30. Among these 50 tracks are definitive recordings--in fact, two or three versions each--of such classics as “Black and Tan Fantasy,” “East St. Louis Toodle-oo” and “The Mooche.”

Most important of the 14 albums are four Prestige CDs taken from historic Carnegie Hall concerts in the mid-’40s. The first of these--”Carnegie Hall 1943”-- contains the only existing performance of “Black, Brown and Beige” (subtitled: “A Tone Parallel to the History of the American Negro”) in its 45-minute entirety.

It was an evening few of us in the room could ever forget. At last Ellington was liberated: He was out of the Harlem cabarets. He was not confined to repeating show scores. He was not in a ballroom playing for dancers. He was on stage introducing his empyrean extended concert work before an audience of dignitaries in an evening that raised money for the Russian War Relief.

Along with the suite are 21 short Ellington or Billy Strayhorn works, some world famous (“Mood Indigo,” “Rockin’ in Rhythm”), others long forgotten (Strayhorn’s “Dirge”).

Because none of New York’s eight newspapers had a jazz writer, Duke’s masterpiece was either ignored or condescended to by a few confused classical “experts.” Discouraged, the maestro never performed the whole work again, but he went on to later produce “The Perfume Suite,” “The Liberian Suite” and a long series of others.

This Carnegie series on Prestige (the other years covered are 1944, 1946 and 1947) represents the most valuable set of performances in the annals of orchestral jazz.

Other albums--also all recommended--are “Ellington Cotton Club Orchestra: Jungle Nights in Harlem, 1927-1932” (RCA Bluebird), “Ellington Orchestra Featuring Paul Gonsalves 1962” (Fantasy), “Ellington’s Small Bands 1967-70” (Fantasy) and “Happy Reunion: Ellington Septet/Quartet” (Sony Music).

Ellington can be seen on “Memories of Duke,” a just-released 85-minute video (A*Vision, $19.98) that was filmed during the band’s 1968 tour of Mexico. It features performances of a dozen of the composer’s standards and the rare “Mexican Suite,” which featured Duke more prominently at the piano than was his custom.

You can also read about the jazz legend in Mark Tucker’s “Ellington: The Early Years” (University of Illinois Press, $34.95), a book that ends where some biographies begin--in 1927, when Ellington opened at the Cotton Club. Painstakingly researched, it offers valuable insights into the Washington and New York music worlds of the early 20th Century.