The Seventies: River Sides...

Part 2 of Stanley Slome's essay on The River. Here is a discography of recordings of the work with some updated comments of my own in blue...

The Recordings

DUKE ELLINGTON: THE PRIVATE COLLECTION Volume V 

The River here includes all the sections of the ballet.  We hear Duke's band charts for The Run, The Neo-Hip-Hot Kiddies Community and Her Majesty the Sea, which Alvin Ailey didn't get around to choreographing.  There is some evidence that Collier orchestrated these because of Newsweek's Saal's reference to the "50-minute" score reaching Ailey and by a Collier remark in Toronto that seven movements were recorded but that there were more that were written.  

If a completer orchestration of The River exists, then Schirmer's Music Publishing Company may have it.  Stanley Dance wrote me that "Mercer did a deal with them for the long works." But all we have of the missing music is what is on Duke's band charts.   

Except for Neo-Hip-Hot, a hard-driving swinger that cuts short at 1:45,each section sounds like a complete entity that can stand on its own. I find it incomprehensible as to why Ron Collier views Lake with embarrassment.   It is sensual and has a strong Near Eastern sound.  Noteworthy is the interplay of flute and bass,and handing of the main theme from clarinet to trumpet to flute. Whirlpool (Vortex) contains scintillating percussion effects. River (Riba),a concept of Mercer's, is exciting mainstream jazz.   If you listen closely to the band in full hue and cry, you will hear the appreciative hand claps of Duke himself punctuating the rhythms.

The most poignant section is the spiritual-influenced The Village of the Virgins.  The Falls  finds Duke in, rhythmically, his driving, steam locomotive mode.   Of the sections that didn't make to the ballet, The Run was the most effective with its mixture of a skipping, soft-shoe dance theme and a waltz.  

Forget Ron Collier's griping.  This is good Ellington.

DUKE ELLINGTON: THE THREE BLACK KINGS.

PREMIERE RECORDING

The Duke Ellington Orchestra with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Mercer Ellington

(Frogbox TFB 100/2) NA

A 2-LP set of a live performance in Warsaw in 1980.  The River does not get top billing on the front cover, of course, but its title is on the back cover,along with New World A-Coming.  If you wanted to have an idea of what the ballet might have sounded like if Ellington's men had joined forces with a small symphony orchestra in the pit that June evening in 1970, this is the recording to have.  High point of the eight sections is Village of the Virgins, with its penetrating chorale treatment in the brass and a wah-wah mute trumpet solo by an unidentified player. Spring has a pronounced Near Eastern sound.  Mercer conducts with vigor and flexible inflections.  Riba, which Mercer says in the liner notes that his dad borrowed from, is a roaring, wailing, romping swinger and the Polish musicians respond well.  Sonically,the performance details are often clouded over by the circumstances of a live recording.  A digitally remastered CD re-release is in order.   

A CD has, in fact, been produced since Stanley wrote his article. It is, in fact, simply a needle drop on the dreadful label Squatty Roo Records. The 'album' is available on this form on Spotify ...

Better still, why not watch the whole performance, courtesy of You Tube. it is a remarkable concert...

DUKE ELLINGTON: SUITE FROM THE RIVER

TOSHIRO MAYUZUMI: ESSAY FOR STRING ORCHESTRA

The Louisville Orchestra conducted by Akira Endo

(Louisville Orchestra LS (LP) 777 NA

A 1983 recording.  No Ellington men but the Louisvillians offer a lot of good things here, aided by far better sound than Mercer got.  Meander is effective with its swaggering Slaughter on Tenth Avenue-like theme with "shake' trumpets.   The Village of the Virgins has a haunting, bluesy sound. Giggling Rapids is decidedly boppish and did I detect a coy quote from the old Woody Woodpecker cartoon theme? Falls with a full symphony orchestra in force gives a good impression of an onrushing train, complete with horn calls.

This recording is also available now digitally as a download or on Spotify...

DUKE ELLINGTON: SUITE FROM THE RIVER; HARLEM; SOLITUDE

WILLIAM LEVI DAWSON: NEGRO FOLK SYMPHONY

Detroit Symphony Orchestra conducted by Neeme Jarvi

(CHAN 9909 CD)

Recorded 29 September and 3 October, 1992.  As he did with Harlem, Jarvi and the Detroiters come through for Duke although the suite is reduced to seven sections with the omission of Falls.  Since the entire CD goes only 51:08, Falls could have been put in. Aided by great engineering in an acoustically friendly venue in Detroit Symphony Orchestra Hall, Jarvi conducts dynamically with impeccable phrasing.  On Spring, note how he builds to a climax with the cymbal crash.   Ron Collier should be proud of Jarvi and his men in Lake. More than Mercer or Endo, they convey a longing, sensuous atmosphere.  In comparison this interpretation makes the other orchestral efforts sound like the plush mood music recordings of the Fifties and Sixties.  Vortex with its percussion effects has tension and power.  It seems evident that Duke and Collier did a lot of listening to Stravinsky and maybe to Varese along the way with perhaps some Sauter-Finegan thrown in.  By the way, Ron Collier on the back of the CD, gets credit as orchestrator.  He did say in Toronto that he was unaware of the CD until someone brought his attention to it.  Only psychic income there.   Maybe some day we'll get to hear all of his orchestration of The River.  

... and finally, one recording which was not available when Stanley Slome wrote his article...

TONY OVERWATER TRIO & CALEFAX REED QUINTET
ELLINGTON SUITES: FAR EAST SUITE AND THE RIVER
(JAZZ IN MOTION JIM 75219 CD)