The Blanton-Webster Band

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The Blanton-Webster Band
Compilation album by Duke Ellington

Publication
(s)

1986

Label (s) Bluebird Records

Format (s)

CD , LP

Genre (s)

jazz

Title (number)

66

running time

approx. 204 minutes

The Blanton-Webster Band is a compilation by Duke Ellington . It first appeared in the mid-1980s and contains songs that were originally recorded and released in the early 1940s. The songs can be assigned to the genre of jazz or the sub-genre of swing .

Name and meaning

The name The Blanton-Webster Band refers to the period between January 1940 and September 1941 when Jimmy Blanton played the double bass and Ben Webster the tenor saxophone in the Duke Ellington Orchestra . In its 50-year history, those two years are generally considered to be the most important; Mainly because the big band at that time was made up of high-class musicians not only in these two positions, but in all positions . Billy Strayhorn , who supported Duke Ellington in composing and arranging in a congenial way , also played a decisive role in the quality of the songs from this period . Therefore, many of these songs have become classics of jazz.

Because of their cultural significance, the recordings of the Blanton-Webster era have been recorded in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress since 2003 .

admission

The songs that can be heard on The Blanton-Webster Band were recorded between March 6, 1940 and July 28, 1942 in New York, Chicago and Hollywood by the following musicians: 

Jimmy Blanton was only involved in a good two-thirds of the recordings ; he had to leave the Duke Ellington Orchestra in the fall of 1941 because of an illness from which he died in the summer of 1942. He was replaced by Junior Raglin in the winter of 1941.

Publications

The Blanton-Webster Band was first published in 1986 by Bluebird , a sub- label of the RCA label , on three CDs or four records . In 2003, the RCA compilation was re-released as Never No Lament: The Blanton-Webster Band on three CDs - supplemented by nine tracks; four master and five alternative takes .

Sound

Compared to later releases of the songs from the "Blanton-Webster Years", such as the carefully remastered versions of the Dreyfus Records label , the sound on The Blanton-Webster Band is relatively thin and flat.

reception

Despite these sound technical deficits, The Blanton-Webster Band received extremely positive reviews. The reviewer of the Guardian wrote that the compilation contains a "surprising number of classics". And in the music database Allmusic - with a rating of five out of five possible stars - you can read: "This music is essential for all jazz collections." 

title

The Blanton-Webster Band contains 66 songs: 

CD 1

  1. You, You Darlin ′ (Scholl / Jerome)
  2. Jack the Bear ( Ellington )
  3. Ko-Ko (Ellington)
  4. Morning Glory (Ellington)
  5. So Far, So Good ( Lawrence / Mundy / White)
  6. Conga Brava (Ellington / Tizol )
  7. Concerto for Cootie (Ellington)
  8. Me and You (Ellington)
  9. Cottontail (Ellington)
  10. Never No Lament (Ellington)
  11. Dusk (Ellington)
  12. Bojangles - A Portrait of Bill Robinson (Ellington)
  13. A Portrait of Bert Williams (Ellington)
  14. Blue Goose (Ellington)
  15. Harlem Air Shaft (Ellington)
  16. At a Dixie Roadside Diner ( Leslie / Burke )
  17. All Too Soon (Ellington / Sigman )
  18. Rumpus in Richmond (Ellington)
  19. My Greatest Mistake (Fulton / O′Brien)
  20. Sepia Panorama (Ellington)
  21. There Shall Be No Night (Shelley / Silver )
  22. In a Mellotone (Ellington)

CD 2

  1. Five O'Clock Whistle (Gannon / Myrow / Irwin)
  2. Warm Valley (Ellington)
  3. The Flaming Sword (Ellington)
  4. Across the Track Blues (Ellington)
  5. Chloe - Song of the Swamp ( Kahn / Moret)
  6. I Never Felt This Way Before ( Dubin / Ellington)
  7. The Sidewalks of New York (Lawlor / Blake)
  8. Flamingo (Grouya / Anderson)
  9. The Girl in My Dreams Tries to Look Like You ( Mercer Ellington )
  10. Take the "A" Train ( Strayhorn )
  11. Jumpin 'Punkins (Mercer Ellington)
  12. John Hardy's Wife (Mercer Ellington)
  13. Blue Serge (Mercer Ellington)
  14. After All (Strayhorn)
  15. Bakiff (Tizol)
  16. Are you sticking? (Ellington)
  17. Just A-Settin 'and A-Rockin' (Ellington / Strayhorn / Gaines)
  18. The Giddybug Gallop (Ellington)
  19. Chocolate Shake (Ellington / Webster )
  20. I Got It Bad - And That Ain′t Good (Ellington / Webster)
  21. Clementine (Strayhorn)
  22. The Brown-Skin Gal - In the Calico Gown (Ellington / Webster)

CD 3

  1. Jump for Joy (Ellington / Webster / Kuller)
  2. Moon Over Cuba (Ellington / Tizol)
  3. Five O'Clock Drag (Ellington)
  4. Rocks in My Bed (Ellington)
  5. Bli-Blip (Ellington / Kuller)
  6. Chelsea Bridge (Strayhorn)
  7. Raincheck (Strayhorn)
  8. What Good Would It Do? (Pepper / James)
  9. I Don′t Know What Kind of Blues I Got (Ellington)
  10. Perdido (Tizol)
  11. The "C" Jam Blues (Ellington)
  12. Moon Mist (Mercer Ellington)
  13. What Am I Here For? (Ellington)
  14. I Don′t Mind (Strayhorn / Ellington)
  15. Someone (Ellington)
  16. My Little Brown Book (Strayhorn)
  17. Main Stem (Ellington)
  18. Johnny Come Lately (Strayhorn)
  19. Hayfoot Strawfoot (Lenk / Drake / McGrane)
  20. Sentimental Lady (Ellington)
  21. A Slip of the Lip - Can Sink a Ship (Henderson / Mercer Ellington)
  22. Sherman Shuffle (Ellington)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Duke Ellington: The Blanton-Webster Band (Liner Notes)
  2. ↑ a b www.allmusic.com: The Blanton-Webster Band (review)
  3. ↑ a b www.theguardian.com: The Blanton-Webster Band (review)
  4. ↑ www.chicagoreader.com: Duke Ellington - selected works (reviews)
  5. ↑ www.loc.gov: The recordings of the Blanton-Webster era in the National Recording Registry
  6. ↑ www.discogs.com: The Blanton-Webster Band (release details)
  7. ↑ Duke Ellington: Ko-Ko (Liner Notes)
  8. ↑ Duke Ellington: Take The A Train (Liner Notes)