The Ellington Tributes Just Keep On Coming

As the Ellington centennial year winds to a close, another rush of celebratory albums has arrived, their stylistic diversity underlining the great jazz master’s vital role in the history of 20th century American music.

Of the many stylistic areas in which Ellington was a key figure, however, the least acknowledged has been in the craft of songwriting. Despite the widespread popularity of his ample catalog of songs, his work as a composer, pianist and bandleader has tended to overshadow his role as one of the principal contributors to the Great American Songbook. Yet, by any definition, he deserves equal billing with, say, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Jerome Kern and others.

So it’s particularly appropriate that Tony Bennett, one of the principal interpreters of American song, has taken on a full program of Ellington numbers in “Tony Bennett Sings Ellington Hot & Cool” (***, RPM/Columbia). Performing in settings that range from small ensembles to full orchestra, he covers many of the Ellington highlights--”Mood Indigo,” “In a Sentimental Mood,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “Prelude to a Kiss” and “Do Nothing ‘Til You Hear From Me” among them.

Bennett’s readings are generally first-rate, almost always remaining within the contours of the music, at times reaching into the essence of songs with the kind of subtle understatement that has not always been present in his work in recent years. Always capable of delivering a phrase with a buoyant lift and swing, he sings the up-tempos with the drive of a jazz instrumentalist. And his ballad renderings have the magic of real storytelling, true to the music and the words, only occasionally falling prey to Bennett’s perplexing insistence upon proving that he can still hold a high note.

Ellis Marsalis, the patriarch of the Marsalis musical clan, comes up with a different, if no less appealing, perspective on Ellington with “Duke in Blue” (*** 1/2, Columbia). Performing alone, he offers a solo piano meditation on many of the same pieces, ending with the title track tribute, his own composition.

Marsalis’ great strength, apparent in every interpretation, is his musical intelligence. Intimately reactive to every shift of rhythmic direction, to every harmonic nuance, he delineates each piece with a deceptively simple clarity that brings the music’s inner qualities vividly to life. Never relying on virtuosic technical displays, he searches, instead, for the kind of pianistic timbres that best parallel the musical universe--the Ellington orchestra--in which many of the songs were created. The result is a set of renderings that surely would have brought a smile to the master’s face.

If Marsalis offers us Ellington, in a sense, from the inside, Grammy- winning arranger Don Sebesky provides a more external view with “Joyful Noise: A Tribute to Duke Ellington” (***, RCA Victor). Admittedly, he faces a difficult task--writing arrangements of music (“Mood Indigo,” “Creole Love Call,” “Satin Doll,” etc.) that are indelibly colored by the timbres of the Ellington orchestra. It’s somewhat, perhaps, like rearranging a Beethoven symphony. To his credit, Sebesky doesn’t attempt any false simulations, instead centering the songs within his own hard-swinging style. “Mood Indigo,” for example, opens with an extended fanfare leading into an up-tempo romp. “Creole Love Call” emerges over a boogie-like bass line played by Ron Carter. “Caravan” alternates between floating dissonances and sudden bursts of West Coast-like swing.

Most of the pieces are enlivened considerably by the presence of an all-star lineup of soloists, including (in addition to Carter) Bob Brookmeyer, Tom Harrell, John Pizzarelli and Phil Woods. And the album closes, interestingly, with Sebesky’s transcription of the original 1941 arrangement of “Ko-Ko,” a striking testimony to the timeless quality of Ellington’s own scoring.

Marcus Roberts reveres Ellington in a completely different fashion with the appropriately titled “In Honor of Duke” (** 1/2, Columbia). Rather than reexamine the Ellington repertoire, Roberts has composed a complete set of original pieces, performed by his own trio (Jason Marsalis on drums and Roland Guerin on bass, with guest percussionist Antonio Sanchez).

Enormously gifted, both as a pianist and a composer, Roberts succeeds in honoring Ellington without quite coming up with particularly memorable music. The spirit of Ellington--apparent in some of the harmonic usages, in the open-minded approach to rhythm, and the musical layering of emotional content--is certainly present. And Roberts, Marsalis and Guerin perform with the same sort of intimate interaction present in the Ellington orchestra. But memorable melodic content is in short supply, and too often the pieces have the feeling of conscious manipulation rather than the ease of spontaneous creative flow.

Among other releases is a reissue package embracing further aspects of the Ellington musical aura. “Impulsively Ellington!” (*** 1/2, Impulse!) is a two-CD set covering the years between 1961 and 1965, when producer Bob Thiele recorded numerous Ellington works, sometimes with orchestra members such as Johnny Hodges, Paul Gonsalves, Ben Webster, Lawrence Brown and others.