Duke Ellington - Ken Burns JAZZ Collection: Duke Ellington

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Music reviews of Ken Burns JAZZ Collection: Duke Ellington

Music Review: A skewed survey of a big territory
Rating: 4 Stars

This compilation's music can't be argued with: this is essential music. But I'm rather surprised by the failure to represent the later Ellington. This suggests that while Wynton Marsalis's hand is perceptible in many aspects of the Ken Burns project, he wasn't involved here: Marsalis & his critic-supporter Stanley Crouch have been strong advocates for Ellington's later work. I find myself on the whole agreeing with Gunther Schuller's assessment (in _The Swing Era_) that the later Ellington only sporadically matched the heights of his 1930s and 1940s music; yet certainly there's a lot of later music one wouldn't want to miss, & I'm baffled by the exclusions here. I'm sure it's only timing considerations that kept the monumental 15-minute "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" from the 1956 Newport concert off this disc--that's the track that single-handedly reversed Ellington's decline in fortunes through its astonishing extended Paul Gonsalves solo that nearly induced a riot. I am very puzzled, though, at the omission of classic tracks from recordings like _Such Sweet Thunder_ ("Star-Crossed Lovers", in particular), or _The Far East Suite_ ("Isfahan"), or _And His Mother Called Him Bill_ (with Billy Strayhorn's ultra-chromatic swansong "Bloodcount"). Such omissions speak not just to representation of highpoints in Ellington's career, but also to Ellington's ambitions: this compilation ignores Ellington's aspirations to large-scale composition. I might agree that these aspirations didn't always bear fruit (as with Charlie Parker, the 3-minute limitations of old 78s actually seemed to intensify rather than limit Ellington's music); yet they are important to one's sense of Ellington's career & achievement, & deserve representation here.

Description of Ken Burns JAZZ Collection: Duke Ellington

Jazz CDs

• Music > Styles
• Pop