Word: ellington
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This matter of orchestration is almost as important as composition; the medley of Ellington favorites was served up in a hectic, pretentious hash in which only "Mood Indigo" appeared in the form we love so well, and the separate original versions of the tunes in the medley remained invariably far superior. In the matter of composition, the contrast was sharp, but I hesitate to pass judgement so readily...
...Ellington's music has always been an intensely personal matter, not only as far as he was concerned, but his musicians as well. For years the band played without written music (quipped Duke, "What would we do if the lights went out?"), partly because the compositions and arrangements were worked out by Duke with the individual men, and partly because a few of the earlier members were slow at reading (but fast on the draw...
Most of the material was developed by virtually the entire band, and only a few compositions could truly be considered the sole work of any one man. The Ellington band had an exceptionally stable personnel between 1927 and 1941, but the past two years have brought about three or four times as many changes as the Ellington band has ever had. As a result, the music is less distinctive, less personal, and somewhat streamlined...
...that a violinist assume an agonized, orgiastic expression in order to produce a simple passage; Nance was such a phony mugger that when he trotted out for his last violin solo the crowd laughed before he even began to play. Nance would never have been tolerated in the old Ellington band, and there would have been no room for such ordinary musicians as Skippy Williams and Jimmy Hamilton...
...highlight of the evening for me was Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton's coda on "Black and Tan Fantasy." Nanton's plunger trombone, although sometimes exploited for comic effect, is my favorite voice in the Ellington band--especially so since Johnny Hodges has taken to playing only sentimentally, with every appearance as soloist winding up in an ever-softening fadeout. "Rockin' In Rhythm," as always, was a good, solid performance, and even Nance's fiddle couldn't mar the beauty of "Moon Mist...