Through the early Sixties, Duke Ellington made many collaborative recordings with jazz greats. He paired up with Depend Basie, Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Max Roach, and Charles Mingus, however his album with John Coltrane was amongst his most profitable.
This was in due in no small half to the brilliance of Coltrane’s enjoying. However Coltrane, ever the perfectionist, felt like he might’ve performed even higher. Possibly. “I was really honored to have the opportunity of working with Duke. It was a wonderful experience. He has set standards I haven’t caught up with yet,” Coltrane mentioned in early 1963. “I would have liked to have worked over all those numbers again, but then I guess the performances wouldn’t have had the same spontaneity. And they mightn’t have been any better.”
Duke Ellington & John Coltrane was recorded on September 26, 1962, at Rudy Van Gelder’s Englewood Cliff’s Studio. It was, unusually for Ellington, a small group recording on which Jimmy Garrison and Aaron Bell shared the bass duties and Elvin Jones and Sam Woodyard cut up the drum enjoying.
By this level, 63-year-old Ellington was a jazz legend, having honed his chops at Harlem’s Cotton Membership within the Nineteen Twenties. For 36-year-old Coltrane, this album was in the same, extra accessible space to his Johnny Hartman and Ballads albums recorded across the identical time.
What’s so stunning about this file is the best way the 2 jazz giants complement one another. Neither Duke nor ‘Trane makes an attempt to take over the recording. The consequence was one of the crucial pleasant albums to be issued by Impulse! within the first few years of its existence – aided by Van Gelder and producer Bob Thiele.
The album options Ellington requirements like “In a Sentimental Mood,” new Ellington compositions together with the playful “Take The Coltrane,” and a brand new Coltrane composition known as “Big Nick.” These jazz geniuses are clearly snug in each other’s firm, and also you’ll be very snug in theirs.
Duke Ellington & John Coltrane might be purchased right here.
