Just a few months after the discharge of his Blue Observe album Promenade with Duke in April 1993, French pianist Michel Petrucciani informed an viewers in London why he had recorded a tribute album to the grasp composer and bandleader Duke Ellington. “I’ve been preparing this album for 25 years,” the French-born pianist mentioned. “Duke Ellington was the one who made me learn the piano.”
The well-known story goes that Petrucciani’s ambition to grow to be a pianist was first sparked by watching a televised Ellington live performance, when he was aged simply 4. His father purchased him a toy piano however Petrucciani was so annoyed by its limitations that he destroyed it with a hammer. “It was not the sound I had heard on TV,” he later recalled. “When I saw Duke Ellington on the piano with the big band, I said ‘I want to do that one day.’ He really touched my heart.”
Hearken to Michel Petrucciani’s Promenade with Duke now.
Promenade with Duke, a neat title Petrucciani got here up with himself, contained variations of “Caravan,” “Lush Life,” “African Flower,” “In a Sentimental Mood,” “One Night in the Hotel,” “Satin Doll” and “‘C’ Jam Blues.” There may be additionally his personal beautiful ‘Ellingtonian’ composition “Hidden Joy,” which he wrote for his son Alexandre. The album is stuffed with beautiful performances, as Petrucciani put his personal stamp on a few of the best-known tunes in jazz, reinventing them into a mix of homage and improvisation. “It’s very difficult to play Duke Ellington’s music and not come out sounding like Duke Ellington,” he defined.
Among the many highlights are the seven-minute model of “Caravan,” which explores each nuance of the 1936 hit Ellington wrote with trombonist Juan Tizol, a efficiency that encapsulates the Frenchman’s masterful capacity to create a temper. One other triumph is his model of “‘C’ Jam Blues,” a tune Ellington composed in 1942. One in all Petrucciani’s fingers delivers the rolling blues rhythm whereas the opposite delivers a delightfully wistful melodic line – it’s a masterpiece of solo invention. The interpretation of “Lush Life,” composed by Ellington collaborator Billy Strayhorn, is stuffed with romanticism and sparkle.
Sparkle and pleasure, finally, are the phrases that the majority come to thoughts when listening to Promenade with Duke. Petrucciani was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, often called “glass bone disease.” However, as jazz drummer and Promenade co-producer Gilles Avinzac as soon as put it, Michel “had the fierce desire to overcome his handicap, to live at a hundred miles an hour. He combined intelligence, charisma, kindness and humor.”
Maybe Petrucciani noticed comparable character traits in Ellington. On the very least, Petrucciani believed Ellington’s music was, above all, joyous – a counterpoint to the troubled genius stereotype that sticks to so many different jazz musicians. “I’m at peace with myself when I play,” Petrucciani as soon as revealed. “I don’t believe in suffering artists… I’m very, very, happy.” That happiness shines by means of on this fantastic album.
Hearken to Michel Petrucciani’s Promenade with Duke now.
