Ellington at Newport

Infobox Album |
Name = Ellington at Newport
Type = Live album
Artist = Duke Ellington


Released =
Recorded = July 7, 1956
Genre = Jazz
Length = 129:57
Label = Columbia
Producer = George Avakian (1999 re-issue: Phil Schaap)
Reviews =
* Allmusic Rating|5|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:qp7uak5kgm3v link]
Last album = ""
(1956)
This album = "Ellington at Newport"
(1956)
Next album = "Duke Ellington and the Buck Clayton All-Stars at Newport, Vol. 2"
(1956)
Misc = Extra album cover
Upper caption = Alternate cover
Background = burlywood


Lower caption = 1999 Re-issue cover

"Ellington at Newport" is a 1956 jazz live album by Duke Ellington and his band, recording their historic 1956 concert at the Newport Jazz Festival.

Duke and his band had slipped in popularity with the rise of bebop, the jazz style which was developed by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk, among others. Many big bands had folded completely by the mid-1950s, but Duke had kept his band working, occasionally doing shows in ice-skating rinks to stay busy. The Duke Ellington Orchestra had done some European tours during the early 1950s, and Duke was chiefly supporting the band himself through royalties earned on his popular compositions of the 1920s to 1940s.

Duke and his orchestra arrived to play at the Newport Jazz Festival at a time when jazz festivals were a fairly new innovation. The crowds in those days were quite sedate compared to the typical concert-going crowd of today. The first few numbers, including "Black and Tan Fantasy" and "Tea for Two" were played without a few of the band's members as they were unable to be found at the start of the show.

After some performances by other players at the festival, the remainder of the band was located and the real performance began. Duke led off with "Take the 'A' Train", followed by a new composition of Duke and Billy Strayhorn's which was a three-part suite. The first movement was entitled "Festival Junction". The second was called "Blues to Be There" and the final movement was named "Newport Up". This suite was intended to be the showstopper, but the reception was not as enthusiastic as was hoped.

Following the Newport Suite, Duke called for Harry Carney's baritone saxophone performance of "Sophisticated Lady". Then the orchestra played "Day In, Day Out". Following this, Duke announced that they were pulling out "some of our 1938 vintage"---a pair of blues, "Diminuendo in Blue" and "Crescendo in Blue," joined by an improvised interval, which Duke announced would be played by tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves.

Ellington had been experimenting with the reworking for several years before the Newport performance; a release of one of his Carnegie Hall concerts of the 1940s presented the two old blues joined by a wordless vocal passage, "Transbluecency," but in time he chose to join the pair by a saxophone solo, handing it to Gonsalves, experimenting with it in shorter performances before the Newport show, where Ellington is believed to have told Gonsalves to blow as long as he felt like blowing when the solo slot came. It came after two choruses of an Ellington piano break at what was formerly the conclusion of "Diminuendo in Blue."

As performed at Newport, the experiment ended up revamping the Ellington reputation and fortune for the rest of Ellington's life. The previous experiments culminated in a 27-chorus solo by Gonsalves, simple but powerful enough---backed only by bassist Jimmy Woode, drummer Sam Woodyard, and Ellington himself pounding punctuating piano chords and (with several audible band members as well) hollering urgings-on ("Come on, Paul---dig in! Dig in!") to his soloist---that the normally sedate crowd was on their feet dancing in the aisles, reputedly provoked by a woman in a black dress getting up in one of the boxes and beginning to dance enthusiastically. [Avakian, George. Liner notes to original release of "Ellington at Newport", Columbia Records CL 934, 1956.] When the solo ended and Gonsalves collapsed in exhaustion, Ellington himself took over for two choruses of piano solo before the full band returned for the "Crescendo in Blue" portion, finishing with a rousing finale featuring high-note trumpeter Cat Anderson.

After that performance, pandemonium took over. Duke calmed the crowd by announcing, "If you've heard of the saxophone, then you've heard of Johnny Hodges." Duke's best known alto saxophonist then played two of his most famous numbers in "I Got it Bad, and That Ain't Good" followed by "Jeep's Blues." Still the crowd refused to disperse so Duke called for Ray Nance to sing "Tulip or Turnip." The festival's organizers tried to cut off the show at this point but once again were met with angry refusals to end this magical evening.

Duke told the announcer that he would end the show and wanted to thank the audience but instead announced he had a "very heavy request for Sam Woodyard in "Skin Deep," the number written by former Ellington drummer Louis Bellson. This drum solo feature was the final number featured, followed by a farewell from Duke over "Mood Indigo". In his farewell, he thanked the crowd for the "wonderful way in which you've inspired us this evening." He then finished with his trademark statement, "You are very beautiful, very lovely and we do love you madly." With that, the historic show concluded.

Columbia Records recorded the concert and an album soon followed. Duke appeared soon after on the cover of "Time", and his resurgent popularity lasted throughout the rest of his life. Some of his best albums occurred during the next decade and a half, until age and illness began to claim some of Duke's band members and, in 1974, Ellington himself.

In 1996, a tape was discovered in the annals of the Voice of America radio broadcasts which changed everything. It turned out that the 1956 album which was produced had indeed been fabricated with studio performances mixed with some live recordings and artificial applause. The reason for this was that Ellington felt the under-rehearsed "Newport Festival Suite" had not been performed up to recording release standards, and he wished to have a better version on tape if it was to be issued on record. Producer George Avakian did as Ellington asked and the band entered the studio immediately after the festival. Avakian mixed in the studio version with portions of the live performance. The applause was dubbed onto the original release to cover up the fact that Gonsalves had been playing into the wrong microphone and was often completely inaudible. On the 1999 reissue, the VoA live recording and the live Columbia tapes were painstakingly pieced together using digital technology to create a true stereophonic recording of the most well-known Ellington performance of the past fifty years, this time with Gonsalves's solo clearly heard, though the beginning of the audience cheering and noise at around the seventh or eighth chorus of the solo can still be heard as well. [Schaap, Phil. Liner notes to "Ellington at Newport (Complete)", Columbia Records / Legacy C2K 64932, 1999 February.] This is particularly noteworthy because stereo was not in use until the following year, 1957. The 1999 re-issue of this record, "Ellington at Newport (Complete)", [Columbia Records / Legacy C2K 64932.] is a magnificent document that preserves some of the most inspired performances of the Duke Ellington Orchestra's career.

References