A major release of Ellington recordings new to CD was published recently by the Parisian Ellington association La Maison du Duke. The disc comprises performances recorded for theatre, television and cinema. Highlight of the collection is the extremely rare set of recordings for the 1960 stage production of the comedy Turcaret, music for which was composed by Ellington and Strayhorn. They worked with an orchestra of French musicians and, as has been remarked, they conjured a particularly Ellingtonian performance from the players. Here are scans of the booklet and liner notes. Further details of this exciting release are included below...
The Ellington discographer and expert Brian Koller has identified the sources for the tracks. His superb Ellington discography may be found here.
MDD01: Comments by Brian Koller
I purchased a copy of the latest La Maison Du Duke CD, Theatre - TV - Cinema. I compared it to the New Desor, and came up with this:
Paris studio recordings for the French play Turcaret, Dec. 30, 1960.
The CD liner notes state the session was on the night of Dec. 29/30, past midnight. The CD includes one take for Ouverture (6037a) while the New Desor lists three takes with the final two being brief piano solos.
Both Ellington and Strayhorn were present, as they were collaborating for the film soundtrack to Paris Blues, but Duke plays most if not all of the solos during the Turcaret session. The introduction to Ouverture is the same as Band Call, which was in vain since the Ellington Orchestra was
not even in France.
The CD has five takes for Frontin. The first three are unlisted in the New Desor. Track 5 has both of the New Desor takes, 6037d and 6037e. The remaining tracks of the session correspond to the New Desor, except take 1 of Chevalier (first half of track 15) was excluded from the New Desor since it was deemed too short. After the Turcaret titles were cut, Ellington and Strayhorn play the latter's piano duet Tonk, a surprise given its omission from New Desor session 6037.
The titles listed in the CD sometimes differ from their New Desor counterparts: M. Turcaret (CD) is Turcaret (New Desor)
Colore de M. Turcaret (CD) is Turcaret (New Desor)
Mme. Turcaret (CD) is Madame Mathilde de Turcaret (New Desor)
Tracks 23 and 24 of the CD are snippets of a recording of a performance of the play Turcaret in January 1961. The snippets demonstrate that Ellington's prerecorded score was played during the play; Track 23 includes Frontin, and Track 24 includes Madame Mathilde de Turcaret.
Track 25 has the Turcaret session masters edited together.
Tracks 26 and 27 are Ellington solo piano titles from his Dec. 17, 1960 appearance on the Jean Sablon television show.
Track 28 has Ellington accompanying actor Vittorio Gassman on the later's dramatic reading (in Italian) of Hamlet's famous soliloquy, recorded following an Ellington Orchestra and Ella Fitzgerald concert on Jan. 30, 1966. Ellington is playing Such Sweet Thunder. This can be seen on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPI-udDB8YA
Track 29 is the Ellington soundtrack to an American Airlines promotional film, previously released on the Extreme Rarities LP Hot Jazz on Film Volume 4 but in improved sound quality here. All of the titles from the soundtrack are edited down from the studio recordings, to synchronize with the promotional film. The soundtrack marks the first appearance of Igoo, the second movement of
Ad Lib On Nippon.
Track 30 has Ellington's July 30, 1963 appearance on the Today Show, hosted by Hugh Downs. The "session" isn't in the published New Desor, but is instead a New Desor correction available at http://depanorama.net/desor/1109.pdf
The CD titles and their New Desor counterparts:
1. 6037a
2. "6037xa"3. "6037xb"
4. "6037xc"
5. 6037d, 6037e
6. 6037f
7. 6037g
8. 6037h
9. 6037i
10. 6037j, 6037k
11. 6037l
12. 6037m
13. 6037n
14. 6037o
15. 6037-unlisted, 6037p
16. 6037q
17. 6037r
18. 6037s
19. 6037t
20. 6037u
21. 6037v
22. "6037w"
23. 6037e
24. 6037u
25. 6037a, 6037h, 6037s, 6037k, 6037v, 6037u, 6037e, 6037m, 6037o 26. 6035a
27. 6035b
28. 6609a
29. 6455r, 6455t, 6455y, 6455q, 6455ap, 6455u, 6455au, 6455aw, 6455as 30. 9102a, 9102b, 9102c, 9102d, 9102e
The previously unknown appearance by Duke Ellington on the Today Show was discovered by this writer. Details of the provenance of this particular recording are here...
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