Duke Ellington - Piano in the Background - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Digitally re-mastered edition of this album from the Jazz great. Duke Ellington was perhaps Jazz music's greatest composer of the 20th century. His importance led to him being asked to provide the musical focal point for the celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln on 1 January 1963, freeing all slaves who were living in the 10 states rebelling in the Civil War. Ellington wrote an extended piece which combined newly composed music with well-chosen works from earlier in his career and captured a wide panorama of the black American experience From Gospel to the Blues. Singer Joy Sherrill was often the focal point, ably assisted by the Ellington Orchestra. Stridently titled MY PEOPLE and featuring an early musical tribute to Martin Luther King, it was released on Bob Thiele's mid-'60s Contact tag but failed to sell in large numbers. Thiele reissued it on Flying Dutchman in the early '70s, but this is the first time that it has been reunited with it's original artwork.

Duke Ellington & His Orchestra, Big Band, Jazz Instrument reissue. Contributing Artists Billy Strayhorn, Clark Terry, Harry Carney, Johnny Hodges, Louie Bellson, Paul Gonsalves.

Duke Ellington's 'The Feeling of Jazz' from Black Lion Records, remastered for the first time in decades by legendary engineer, Bernie Grundman. Performed by the 1962 Duke Ellington Orchestra featuring Cat Anderson, Harold Baker, Aaron Bell, Bill Berry, Lawrence Brown, Roy Burrows, Harry Carney, Chuck Conners, Buster Cooper, Leon Cox, Paul Gonsalves, Jimmy Hamilton, Johnny Hodges, Ray Nance, Russell Procope, and Sam Woodyard.