December 26, 2006
the duke
A great YouTube video of Duke Ellington’s band playing “The Mooche”.
The Ellington Band is a great example of an organization that was [1] totally great, [2] totally original and [3] totally professional. These guys just didn’t mess around.
Anybody who doubts Ellington’s genius as a pianist should go check out his 1963 “Money Jungle” album. He makes it look so damn easy…
[Bonus Link:] If jazz has an equivalent of “Beethoven’s Ninth”, it would surely have to be Charles Mingus’ “Haitian Fight Song” on “The Clown” album. Here’s a YouTube video for some Japanese high school students making a pretty decent go of it. Rock on.
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Hugh–
These are great!
Among my favorites are the small combinations of Ellington or Basie playing with rhythm sections from their bands (as if the band had the day off and they took some extra studio time anyway). Basie’s Kansas City Seven is among the very best and my very favorite.
Ellington was a band leader so his piano playing was not up front, but he was nevertheless a piano genius.
His autobiography, Music is My Mistress, is great reading because he writes in rhythm and because it offers some great stories of his childhood times learning piano by sneaking down to the pool hall and copping licks from Willie the Lion Smith.
Many of the Ellington recordings are also uniquely good sounding — probably due to the simple mic techniques they likely employed in the 1930s & 1940s.
This music is my heart. Thanks for pointing to this joyous video. I’ve spent many happy hours dancing to Ellington, Basie, et al.
Money Jungle is pure genius, Mingus is my favorite jazz composer — next time you are in NYC try to go see the Mingus Big Band play at the Fez on the lower east side, fantastic