JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
Rating: 
For those of you who are familiar with Ellington’s ouvre, bear with me. I had heard some of his work from the 50s and 60s when I came across this compilation in a used records store.
But nothing I had heard prepared me for how brilliant these sides are. They blew my mind. Not that Ellington’s later stuff isn’t great, but it’s sounds more familiar to the modern listener.
These old tunes were recorded on acetates, long before playing records were around, and sure, they sound dated in the sense that they sound old, but they’re still incredibly fresh and vital. These recordings are coming from a completely different place, from a mindset that is extinct, that might as well be from 500 years ago, rather than 70 years ago. Ellington’s music from this period really has no analogue in the music of the last 50 years, which is more or less the limits of the modern consciousness.
That goes for the compositions themselves, the arrangements and the approach to improvisation of the soloists, even the instrumental techniques themselves.
Check out how trombonist “Tricky Sam” Nanton growls with the plunger on Washington Wabble. Listen to the unconventional way Ellington uses vocalists, as just another color instrument on Creole Love Call. Very cool.
The command that Ellington has over an orchestra in this early stage of his career is incredible. The variety of textures he gets seems endless. In Creole Rhapsody, he’s constantly breaking up the orchestra into little mini units; just a piano and clarinet one minute, then a saxophone section, then the full orchestra. He’ll bring an orchestration to a full stop and take off in a completely different direction altogether, but it will completely make sense. He similarly plays with tempo and volume. If anyone were to do the equivalent today in a modern context, he or she would be hailed as a genius.
Then there’s the wonderful Daybreak Express, a train song to end all train songs. Ellington mimics the wheels moving faster and faster, and the train whistle with his orchestra, in witty and exuberant fashion.
If listening to this CD doesn’t put you in a good mood, you probably need medication. This is probably the single best compilation of Ellington out there.
If you find it too pricey for one disk, try Early Ellington: The Complete Brunswick And Vocalion Recordings 1926-1931