Word: ellington
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Just about the hottest alto sax around, Arthur Blythe synthesizes and consolidates the disparate approaches of his first two Columbia albums-the first experimental, following trails laid down by Ornette Coleman, the second closer to the Ellington tradition-and, using two separate combos, fuses them with the white hot heat of his horn. Illusions is a furious exercise in musical release. This man uses his sax like a blowtorch...
...long played second sax to the Room, became a supper club in 1965. Its windows were doubled in size and the floor raised 18 in. to pull the skyline into the room. It was modestly successful for 14 years, bringing in such performers as Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington and Sarah Vaughan. But topflight nonrock talent became increasingly hard to find from season to season, and Partners May and Daly decided to turn the place into a European-style cabaret...
...obsessed with "paying dues," the tradition of enduring hardships and degrading work conditions in order to polish and purify their art. Much has been written about the handful of jazzmen who "came up through the tradition" to achieve international celebrity and artistic and financial success: Louis Armstong and Duke Ellington occupy a warm corner in our popular mythology. But jazz, financially speaking, is a marginal music, and America's margins can be narrow indeed. Ken McIntyre's frustrating experience--he grew tired of getting ripped off, he quit--is far more representative of the jazz life as it is known...
...next piece, "A Cruise to the Moon," develops this line of thinking still further. Lunch has fused a smooth, swinging piece reminiscent of Duke Ellington's prime with a completely separate bit of raunch straight out of Teenage Jesus. She makes it all work by brilliantly counterpointing the two. The two factions alternate between dive-bomb runs and frenetic soloing. They both compete for our affections, and we are propelled by the sheer audacity and exuberance...
Drama; Guys & Dolls, Ellington at Eight...