The Duke's Men

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The Duke's Men
Compilation album by Barney Bigard , Johnny Hodges , Rex Stewart , Cootie Williams

Publication
(s)

1955

Label (s) Epic Records

Format (s)

LP / CD

Genre (s)

swing

Title (number)

16

running time

46:12

occupation

production

Bob Thiele

Cootie Williams,
Photo: William P. Gottlieb .

The Duke's Men is a compilation album that was released in 1955 on Epic Records . It contains tracks that musicians of the Duke Ellington Orchestra recorded under their own names from 1936 to 1939.

The album

Under the title The Duke's Men , Bob Thiele produced a record for Epic with recordings made in the 1930s by Duke Ellington's prominent band members Barney Bigard , Johnny Hodges , Rex Stewart and Cootie Williams under his own name for Vocalion and Okeh Records in New York and Hollywood The line-ups were each a small group edition of the Ellington Orchestra, with Duke Ellington on piano and as co-leader. These were nominally the bands Barney Bigard and His Jazzopators, Johnny Hodges and His Orchestra, Rex Stewart and his 52nd Street Ramblers and Cootie Williams and His Rug Cutters .

The Duke's Men , the title of the compilation, comes from Columbia Records , but in 1944 Sonny Greer released the 78 Mood Indigo / The Mooche on Capitol Records under the band name Sonny Greer and The Duke's Men . A second compilation followed in 1956 under the title Ellington's Sidekicks . Further recordings were made between 1934 and 1941 and were released by Columbia in the form of two double compact discs in 1993 ( The Duke's Men: Small Groups, Vol. 1 ) and 1995 ( The Duke's Men: Small Groups, Vol. 2 ) .

The record cover of the LP shows a caricature by cartoonist William Steig .

Barney Bigard came with his version of Caravan in June 1937 at # 20 on the US charts; it was the first recording Ellington made of it.

Track list

  • The Duke's Men (Epic LG 3108, Epic 24203, Columbia JEE 22005)
  1. Rex Stewart & His 52nd Street Stompers: Rexatious (Stewart) - 2:49
  2. Rex Stewart & His 52nd Street Stompers: Lazy Man's Shuffle (Stewart) - 3:00
  3. Rex Stewart & His 52nd Street Stompers: Back Room Romp (Ellington / Stewart) - 2:51
  4. Rex Stewart & His 52nd Street Stompers: Love's in My Heart ( Hayes Alvis / Ellington / Irving Mills ) - 2:37
  5. Barney Bigard & His Jazzopators: Clouds in My Heart (Bigard / Ellington / Mills) - 3:01
  6. Barney Bigard & His Jazzopators: Frolic Sam (Cootie Williams) - 3:03
  7. Barney Bigard & His Jazzopators: Caravan (Ellington / Mills / Juan Tizol ) - 3:11
  8. Barney Bigard & His Jazzopators: Stompy Jones (Ellington) - 2:46
  9. Johnny Hodges Orchestra: Pyramid (Ellington / Gordon / Mills / Tizol) - 2:54
  10. Johnny Hodges Orchestra: Swingin 'in the Dell (Ellington / Hodges) - 2:37
  11. Johnny Hodges Orchestra: Jitterbug's Lullaby (Ellington / Hodges / Mills) - 3:02
  12. Johnny Hodges Orchestra: The Rabbit's Jump (Hodges) - 2:42
  13. Cootie Williams & His Rug Cutters: I Can't Believe That You're in Love with Me ( Clarence Gaskill / Jimmy McHugh ) - 2:56
  14. Cootie Williams & His Rug Cutters: Blue Reverie (Harry Carney / Duke Ellington) - 2:55
  15. Cootie Williams & His Rug Cutters: Echoes of Harlem (Ellington) - 3:15
  16. Cootie Williams & His Rug Cutters: Swing Pan Alley (Williams) - 3:33

Cast and recording dates

  • Rex Stewart & His 52nd Street Stompers: Rex Stewart (tp), Lawrence Brown (tb), Johnny Hodges (as), Harry Carney (cl, bar), Duke Ellington (p), Ceele Burke (git), Billy Taylor (b ), Sonny Greer (dr) - December 16, 1936 ( Swing Baby Swing July 1, 1937)
  • Barney Bigard & His Jazzopators: Cootie Williams (tp), Juan Tizol (tb), Barney Bigard (cl), Harry Carney (bar), Duke Ellington (p), Fred Guy (git), Billy Taylor (b), Sonny Greer (dr) - December 19, 1936 (with Clouds in my Heart also Johnny Hodges (as)).
  • Johnny Hodges Orchestra: Cootie Williams (tp), Lawrence Brown (tb), Johnny Hodges (as), Harry Carney (bar), Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn (p), Billy Taylor (b), Sonny Greer (dr) - 1 September 1939 ( Pyramid : July 22, 1938, Jitterbug's Lullaby : August 1, 1938, without Strayhorn)
  • Cootie Williams & His Rug Cutters:
    • Cootie Williams (tp), Tricky Sam Nanton (tb), Barney Bigard (cl), Harry Carney (bar), Johnny Hodges (as), Duke Ellington (p), Fred Guy (git), Billy Taylor (b), Sonny Greer (dr) - Echoes of Harlem , January 19, 1938
    • Cootie Williams (tp), Barney Bigard (cl), Otto Hardwick , Johnny Hodges (ss, as), Harry Carney (bar), Duke Ellington (p), Fred Guy (git), Billy Taylor (b), Sonny Greer ( dr), Scat Powell (voc) - Swing Pan Alley , August 2, 1938
    • Cootie Williams (tp), Joe Nanton (tb), Johnny Hodges (ss, as), Harry Carney (bar), Duke Ellington (p), Hayes Alvin (b), Sonny Greer (dr), Scat Powell (voc) - Blue Reverie, I Can't Believe That You're in Love with Me , March 8, 1937

reception

The Allmusic critic gave the album (1955) 4½ (out of five) stars and wrote:

This works well as a 16-track sampler, allowing for a representative overview of the excellent swing music generated by these tight little ensembles.

In their Penguin Guide to Jazz, Richard Cook and Brian Morton award the two CD editions of The Duke's Men with the highest rating of four stars; the presentation is impressive. While there are some common arrangements of pop tracks [which are missing from the 1955 Epic edition], for the most part, "this is the imaginative and elaborate small-group jazz of the era." In addition to a few Ellington titles, the recordings are a feature especially for Rex Stewart, Barney Bigard, Johnny Hodges and Cootie Williams. Highlights include Caravan , Stompy Jones, Back Room Romp, Tea and Trumpets, Love in My Heart, and Echoes of Harlem .

Johnny Hodges with Al Sears (in the background) in the New York jazz club Aquarium, around November 1946. Photo: Gottlieb

In the liner notes of the Complete Edition (1995), Helen Oakley Dance particularly emphasized the Johnny Hodges version of Pyramid , which was preceded by a recording with the Big Band :

" Here it is taylored precisely with this group in mind. Rabbit, as Johnny was often called, was in his element at last and excelled himself. He made a blues of this though the format was forty bars with the middle sixteen featuring a fine contribution of Cootie [Williams]. If at any time you had good fortune to hear him in the first chair, leading the trumpet section in the big band, you woulad have recognized that for brilliance, power and sheer beauty, his sound was seldom, if ever, surpassed. Cootie and Johnny habitually inspired one another. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sonny Greer and The Duke's Men - Mood Indigo / The Mooche at Discogs at Discogs (English).
  2. ^ Joel Whitburn: Pop Memories 1890-1954 . Record Research, Menomone Falls WI 1986. Cf. Gerhard Klußmeier: Jazz in the Charts , p. 9.
  3. ↑ Review of the album The Duke # s Men (1955) by Arwulf Arwulf on Allmusic (English)
  4. ^ Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, LP and Cassette . 2nd Edition. Penguin, London 1994, ISBN 0-14-017949-6 , p. 395.
  5. ^ Helen Oakley Dance: Liner Notes, The Duke's Men: Small Groups, Vol. 2 , p. 8