Duke Ellington

7 CD + DVD

The Duke Box 2 picks up the story of the great Duke Ellington band in the early 1950s and spans the next twenty years or so of a remarkable output.

If Storyville's first "Duke Box" reflected the dominance of the 78rpm single in the 1940s, this collection is to some extented shaped by the advent of the LP and the longer tracks it enabled and encouraged. That technological shift came in a period when Ellington would lose the three of his stellar sidemen: Johnny Hodges, Lawrence Brown and Sonny Greer. As it turned out, their replacements (Willie Smith, Britt Woodman and Louie Bellson) and other new blood only served to re-energise the band as it approached the 25th anniversary of its initial engagement at The Cotton Club. NBC  celebrated the event with live "Silver Jubilee" broadcasts, two of which appear on the first of the seven CDs in this collection.

Spanning the years in which Ellington regularly toured Europe and Scandinavia, The Duke Box 2 offers, inter alia,  a rich selection of performances illustrating a tirelessly inventive musical spirit on tour with changing personnel and occasional guest artists.

A bonus DVD combines a series of short films of the Ellington band in action and despite the sound being recorded first and the performances showing the band miming, this curiosum offers a fascinating glimpse of The Duke in action, and the audio is of course technically excellent.

As a portrait of a sublime and inexhaustible musician thriving in the second half of a long and distinguished career, "The Duke Box 2" is surely a must-have collection for all true admirers of the inimitable Duke Ellington

CD 1: DUKE ELLINGTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA AT BIRDLAND
Birdland New York, November 20th-24th, 1952
Total Time: 73:36

CD2: DUKE ELLINGTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA AT KONGRESSAAL
Deutsches Museum, Munich, (Live; November 14th, 1958)
Total Time: 66:27

CD3: DUKE ELLINGTON AT GRONA LUND TIVOLI
Stockholm (Live; June 6th 1963)
Total Time: 33:47


CD4:  DUKE ELLINGTON THE PIANO PLAYER
Studio; Solo 1961-71
Total Time: 67:30

CD5: DUKE ELLINGTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA THE JAYWALKER
New York, 1966-67 (Studio)
Total Time:  76:32

CD6: DUKE ELLINGTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA NEW YORK, NEW YORK
New York, 1970-72 (Studio)
Total Time: 76:31

CD7: DUKE ELLINGTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA TOGO BRAVA SUITE
New York, 1971 (Studio)
Total Time: 72:33

DVD: 24:26
Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
Pathé Studios, New York. January 9th, 1962