Jazz Party Live (Remastered) Duke Ellington

• 1 Malletoba Spank 03:40
• 2 Red Garter 03:39
• 3 Red Shoes 03:48
• 4 Red Carpet 07:42
• 5 Ready, Go! 06:32
• 6 U.M.M.G. 04:30
• 7 All Of Me 02:32
• 8 Tymperturbably Blue 04:21
• 9 Hello Little Girl 07:56
• Total Runtime 44:40

Info for Jazz Party Live (Remastered)

Recorded in two live sessions about a week apart in February of 1959, JAZZ PARTY covers a lot of ground. Duke's late-'50s band included veterans like Johnny Hodges and Harry Carney in the reed section, as well as newer but equally esteemed musicians such as Clark Terry (trumpet) and tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves. Four of the cuts here make up the "Toot Suite," where, in typical Ellington fashion, various members of the orchestra are featured in turn as soloists.

"Though the blues is part of the theme of this album, and of the titles of many of the tunes, the general feeling is of an uptempo, exciting big band treatment as only Ellington can do it, of all 11 tracks." (John Henry, www.audaud.com, 5 Stars!!)

„This most unusual Duke Ellington record includes two selections featuring nine symphonic percussionists on timpani, vibes, marimbas, and xylophones. Dizzy Gillespie makes a historic appearance with Ellington's orchestra on "U.M.M.G." (a meeting that should have been repeated often but sadly never was), Jimmy Rushing (Count Basie's former vocalist) sings "Hello Little Girl," and both Johnny Hodges ("All of Me") and Paul Gonsalves ("Ready Go!") have chances to blow.“ (Scott Yanow, AMG)

„The suite tends to be underrated now, but it has good statements, notably from Britt Woodman, Shorty Baker, Ray Nance, and Paul Gonsalves, the last of whom storms away in his Newport style. [Jimmy] Rushing, of course, was very happy with the opportunity to sing and record with the Ellington band, and sounds like it.“ (Jazz Times)

Duke Ellington, piano
Cat Anderson, trumpet
Shorty Baker, trumpet
Ray Nance, trumpet
Clark Terry, trumpet
Andrew "Fats" Ford, trumpet
Andres Forda, trumpet
Dizzy Gillespie, trumpet
Paul Gonsalves, tenor saxophone
Johnny Hodges, alto saxophone
Harry Carney, baritone saxophone
Quentin Jackson, trombone
John Sanders, trombone
Britt Woodman, trombone
Jimmy Jones, piano
Jimmy Hamilton, clarinet, tenor saxophone
Russell Procope, clarinet, alto saxophone
Jimmy Rushing, vocals
Jimmy Woode, bass
Sam Woodyard, drums
Chauncey Morehouse, percussion
Morris Goldenberg, percussion
George Gaber, percussion
Elden C. Bailey, percussion
Harry Breuer, percussion
Walter Rosenberg, percussion
Bobby Rosengarden, percussion
Brad Spinney, percussion
Milton Schlesinger, percussion

Recorded February 19, 1959, February 25, 1959 at The Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York
Produced by Irving Townsend

Digitally remastered

Duke Ellington
called his music 'American Music' rather than jazz, and liked to describe those who impressed him as 'beyond category. He remains one of the most influential figures in jazz, if not in all American music and is widely considered as one of the twentieth century's best known African American personalities. As both a composer and a band leader, Ellington's reputation has increased since his death, with thematic repackaging of his signature music often becoming best-sellers. Posthumous recognition of his work include a special award citation from the Pulitzer Prize Board.

Duke Ellington influenced millions of people both around the world and at home. He gave American music its own sound for the first time. In his fifty year career, he played over 20,000 performances in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East as well as Asia.

Simply put, Ellington transcends boundaries and fills the world with a treasure trove of music that renews itself through every generation of fans and music-lovers. His legacy continues to live onand will endure for generations to come. Winton Marsalis said it best when he said 'His music sounds like America.' Because of the unmatched artistic heights to which he soared, no one deserved the phrase “beyond category” more than Ellington, for it aptly describes his life as well. He was most certainly one of a kind that maintained a lifestyle with universal appeal which transcended countless boundaries.

Duke Ellington is best remembered for the over 3000 songs that he composed during his lifetime. His best known titles include; 'It Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing', 'Sophisticated Lady', 'Mood Indigo', “Solitude', 'In a Mellotone', and 'Satin Doll'. The most amazing part about Ellington was the most creative while he was on the road. It was during this time when he wrote his most famous piece, 'Mood Indigo'which brought him world wide fame.

Duke Ellington's popular compositions set the bar for generations of brilliant jazz, pop, theatre and soundtrack composers to come. While these compositions guarantee his greatness, what makes Duke an iconoclastic genius, and an unparalleled visionary, what has granted him immortality are his extended suites. From 1943's Black, Brown and Beige to 1972's The Uwis Suite, Duke used the suite format to give his jazz songs a far more empowering meaning, resonance and purpose: to exalt, mythologize and re-contextualize the African-American experience on a grand scale.

Duke Ellington was partial to giving brief verbal accounts of the moods his songs captured. Reading those accounts is like looking deep into the background of an old photo of New York and noticing the lost and almost unaccountable details that gave the city its character during Ellington's heyday, which began in 1927 when his band made the Cotton Club its home. ''The memory of things gone,'' Ellington once said, ''is important to a jazz musician,'' and the stories he sometimes told about his songs are the record of those things gone. But what is gone returns, its pulse kicking, when Ellington's music plays, and never mind what past it is, for the music itself still carries us forward today.

Duke Ellington was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1966. He was later awarded several other prizes, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969, and the Legion of Honor by France in 1973, the highest civilian honors in each country. He died of lung cancer and pneumonia on May 24, 1974, a month after his 75th birthday, and is buried in the Bronx, in New York City. At his funeral attended by over 12,000 people at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Ella Fitzgerald summed up the occasion, 'It's a very sad day...A genius has passed.'

This album contains no booklet.