Duke Ellington & His Orchestra - Live at the Cave - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

It is 1969, and the great pianist/composer Duke Ellington was on one of his many arduous European tours. However for the first time we are afforded a snapshot of one of his most intimate club performances ever recorded. The place is Cabaret L'Alcazar in Paris, France, and Ellington and his 'instrument', the Famous Orchestra are in rare form, bringing forth a funky, soulful energy sparked of course by his assistant arranger at the time, Hammond Organ pioneer Wild Bill Davis. The great Johnny Hodges, still within a year of his life's ending, is playing excellently still, showing no signs of slowing down here. The famous celebrity Maurice Chevalier was in the house, even gifting the Duke one of his famous hats. It's a party atmosphere entirely but the music is as consistent and swinging as ever. Luminaries such as Hodges, Cootie Williams, Cat Anderson, Harry Carney, Paul Gonsalves, and Lawrence Brown are all cooking here. This is truly a night to remember, and needs to be heard by Ellington aficionados and music lovers alike.

In the mid 1980s Mercer Ellington, the son of legendary American Composer/Bandleader Duke Ellington made several attempts to get his father's posthumous big band in the studio to record albums in order to stay relevant. While recording in L.A., he employed both East Coast and West Coast nuclei, which were utilized for Mercer's touring band. On Harlem Throwbacks, the focus was to do modern recreations of records made in the Cotton Club days of the late 1920s up to the early 1940s. Several Duke Ellington alumni were present for this outing, such as Harold Minerve, Art Baron, Rocky White, Anita Moore, Barrie Lee Hall, and Chuck Connors. It is quite interesting to hear these classic arrangements re-recorded in digital stereo in 1984.

In 1955 the great Duke Ellington and his Orchestra performed for the 10,000 seat D. C. Armory, in his hometown of Washington, D. C. As Ellington fans will of course remember, Ellington had an incredible rebirth at the Newport Jazz Festival the next year, after reacquiring alto saxophone star Johnny Hodges and his writing partner, the great Billy Strayhorn. New drummer Sam Woodyard would also prove to be an invaluable part of the new Ellington sound, but as this concert is from 1955, none of these changes had as yet taken place, which is why this performance is so very significant to the Ellington aficionado. In this performance we have the great alto saxophonist Rick Henderson, who was a very capable arranger as well as bebop altoist. Here we get to hear a rare glimpse of his playing and writing on 'All The Things You Are'. He was not featured as the band's lead alto, as Russell Procope had taken over after brief stints in which Willie Smith and then Hilton Jefferson played lead in the band. We also hear from the great drummer Dave Black, for whom Strayhorn composed and arranged 'Gonna Tan Your Hide', and here he is most interestingly heard in his interpretation of 'Tone Parallel to Harlem'. Perdido is used as a swinging vehicle for Clark Terry's prodigious and sassy story telling, along with some sidebar commentary by other brass members Nance, Anderson, and Woodman. 'Just Squeeze Me' features Ray Nance's soulfully swaggerful singing as always. Pay attention to the 'pep section' (brass with plungers) as they squeeze so much juice out of this song it should be a crime! Cat Anderson does his usual Spanish tinged feature on 'La Virgen', full of suspenseful dramatics and prowlery of 'el gato' himself. Duke announces a fully descriptive introduction of the 1946 composition 'Happy Go-Lucky Local' complete with his subliminal shot at ex-Ellingtonian tenor saxophonist Jimmy