Duke Ellington - The Far East Suite flac album

Far East Suite is an album by Duke Ellington that won the Grammy Award in 1968 for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance – Large Group or Soloist with Large Group. Ellington and Billy Strayhorn wrote the compositions. The album was reissued in 1995 with four previously unreleased alternate takes. In 2003, Bluebird Records issued the album on CD with additional bonus takes. Strayhorn died in May 1967, making Far East Suite one of the last albums recorded during his life to feature his compositions.

The Far East Suite is an album by Duke Ellington and his orchestra, recorded in New York City on 19 December to 21 December 1966. The nine compositions on the original album were all composed by Ellington and Billy Strayhorn (except for one by Ellington); a 1995 reissue (called somewhat misleadingly The Far East Suite - Special Mix) added four previously unreleased alternative takes. In 2003, Bluebird Records issued the LP on a digipak with additional bonus takes.

Duke Ellington's Far East Suite. This particular nine-part suite was arguably Duke Ellington's finest major work of the 1960s. The haunting ballad "Isfahan" (a showcase for altoist Johnny Hodges) is the best-known section but several of the other pieces (particularly "Bluebird of Delhi," "Mount Harissa" and "Ad Lib on Nippon") are also quite memorable. Clarinetist Jimmy Hamilton and tenor-saxophonist Paul Gonsalves co-star with Hodges but it is the creative writing of Ellington and Billy Strayhorn that makes this CD quite essential.

What marks 'Far East Suite' out as something really special, though, is that after all these delights, Duke Ellington can top it all with the outrageous 'Ad Lib On Nippon'. Ellington's piano playing is a delight throughout, and it is breathtaking here. There is also a compelling performance from Jimmy Hamilton on clarinet. For about forty years I have been aware of this album but never heard it. What a treat. One of the best later Ellingtons, as enjoyable as the magnificent New Orleans Suite. Far East Suite ( a misnomer but Duke is entitled to indulge in misleading titles! ) is beautifully composed and arranged by Ellington and Strayhorn and the numbers, varying in tempo and emotional and descriptive content, cohere into a satisfying whole. Jimmy Hamilton's is particularly striking both as a soloist and in the clarinet led ensembles (with Russell Procope).

Duke Ellington's Far East Suite has never enjoyed the accolades lauded upon some of the Maestro's other major works. Black, Brown and Beige and Such Sweet Thunder are in the Ellington canon; Far East, it seems, was left behind. That may be due to its dated Orientalism. During the two years that Ellington and Strayhorn pieced it together (building off the Impressions of the Far East suite first performed in England in 1964), Ellington also premiered the music theater piece My People, wrote the music for a production of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens and, of course, toured his band as much as possible. As a result, the nine pieces (three by Strayhorn) that make up the suite are scattered and lack an overriding theme; the concept is carried out in the titles more than the music

More By Duke Ellington and His Famous Orchestra. And His Mother Called Him Bill. Far East Suite (Remastered). Duke Ellington - The Kings of Big Bands. Duke Ellington: His Very Best.