Far East Suite

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Far East Suite
Studio album by Duke Ellington

Publication
(s)

1967

Label (s) Bluebird / RCA

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

jazz

Title (number)

13 (CD)

running time

60:54 (CD)

occupation

production

Brad McKuen

Studio (s)

RCA Studio A, New York City

chronology
The Popular Duke Ellington
1967 		Far East Suite ... And His Mother Called Him Bill
1968

Far East Suite is a jazz album by Duke Ellington , recorded in December 1966 and released on RCA Victor (later on Bluebird Records ) in 1967. It is the last classic album project that Ellington and Billy Strayhorn worked together.

The album

In 1963, the US State Department sent the Duke Ellington Orchestra on an extended tour that included a. led to Jordan , India , Sri Lanka , Pakistan , other countries in the Middle East and Iran ; it gave the musicians for the first time insights into the "other side of the world". In 1964 a tour of Japan followed. Over the course of the following three years, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn processed the travel impressions at a time interval. At the beginning of 1964, on the occasion of an England tour, the orchestra played pieces from the later suite ( Mynah , Depk , Agra and Amad ), entitled "Expressions of the Far East". The same parts of the Far East Suite were also played live at New York's Carnegie Hall on March 29, 1964 (and later appeared on the Harlem [Pablo] album ). Shortly before the recording sessions in late 1966, Ellington and Strayhorn completed other parts of the suite. From December 19-21, 1966, they went to the studio with the band. Nine compositions were recorded, but the musical location - unlike John Coltrane or Don Cherry on similar occasions - remained unchanged. Richard Cook and Brian Morton ironically call the album The Near East Suite in their review because only the title Ad Lib on Nippon refers to the "Far East". However, impressions or associations with locations beyond the Middle East such as the Iranian city of Isfahan or the Indian temple Taj Mahal , which is portrayed in the play Agra , are awakened . Bluebird of Delhi (Mynah) takes up passages from the singing of a starling bird that Strayhorn heard over and over again from his hotel room in Delhi .

Outstanding for Cook and Morton are the solo performances by Cat Anderson and Paul Gonsalves in the Tourist Point of View and by Johnny Hodges in Isfahan . Another masterpiece is the musical portrait of a mountain near Beirut , Mount Harissa , with a soft, spiritual-looking introduction by Ellington. Depk's exotic theme goes back to a dance that was performed for the band in the Middle East.

In the publication of the CD edition (1995 - misleadingly called Special Mix ) four previously unreleased "alternative takes" are added.

Impact history

Ellington and his formation played the titles of the Far East Suite only rarely. Isfahan , however, was interpreted by other jazz musicians such as Art Farmer , Joe Henderson , Jimmy Rowles or Johannes Enders and Thomas Stabenow . The album itself had a certain influence on the preoccupation of jazz musicians with Asian musical traditions: In 1999, Anthony Brown recorded the suite with his Asian-American Orchestra again and in his version used Far Eastern instruments together with jazz instruments.

In April 2011 a duo version of the double bass player Sebastian Gramss and the saxophonist Leonhard Huhn appeared on CD on the Neckarsteinach label fixcel records .

In their review, Cook and Morton call the album one of the highlights in Ellington's post-war work. They awarded it the highest rating of four stars in their Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD . In his book Sweet Swing Blues on the Road , Wynton Marsalis recommends Ellington's record in a short discography of a “real jazz” record. The All Music Guide awards the album four (out of five) stars.

In 1968 the album won the Down Beat Critics Poll as "Record of the Year". In the same year it was awarded a Grammy for best jazz instrumental performance.

Rolling Stone magazine voted the album 79th on its list of The 100 Best Jazz Albums in 2013 .

The titles

  1. Tourist Point of View - 5:09
  2. Bluebird of Delhi (Mynah) - 3:18
  3. Isfahan - 4:02
  4. Depk - 2:38
  5. Mount Harissa - 7:40
  6. Blue Pepper (Far East of the Blues) - 3:00
  7. Agra - 2:35
  8. Amad - 4:26
  9. Ad Lib on Nippon - 11:34
  10. Tourist Point of View (alternative take) - 4:58
  11. Bluebird of Delhi (Mynah) (alternative take) - 3:08
  12. Isfahan (alternative take) - 4:11
  13. Amad (alternative take) - 4:15

All compositions are by Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn, except for the title [9], which D. Ellington wrote alone. [10] to [13] are also published as bonus tracks on the CD.

Literature / sources

Remarks

  1. ^ Scott Yanow Jazz On Records. The First Sixty Years . San Francisco 2003, p. 659
  2. ↑ Ellington 1964, cit. n. the liner notes of the album
  3. ↑ So Hans Ruland in his review of the album.
  4. ↑ http://fixcelrecords.de/sebastian-gramss-leonhard-huhn-duke-ellingtons-far-east-suite/
  5. ↑ Rolling Stone: The 100 Best Jazz Albums . Retrieved November 16, 2016.