Ellington In Order

 

Very exciting news. Sony Music Entertainment have begun a project to issue all of their Duke Ellington holdings via streaming services. To that end, the first volume of the project was released, just this week, Duke Ellington: Ellington in Order Volume 1 (1927-28)

The release comprises the first 43 sides Ellington recorded for the family of labels now owned by Sony. Considering they own all the masters, chiefly, to Ellington's releases on Columbia and RCA this will be a huge project covering the majority of Ellington's most significant recordings.

Sony had already tested the water for releasing the back catalogue of recordings from the intersection of jazz and popular music which defined American music in the first half of the Twentieth Century with two releases of Doris Day recordings, Doris Day: The Complete Okeh and Columbia Recordings, 1940-1946 and Doris Day: The Complete Columbia Singles 1947-1948.

When these projects were released, I contacted their producer Charles L. Granata to ask if were likely Sony might be thinking about a similarly comprehensive release issue for the works of Duke Ellington. To my surprise in his reply he said:

"...you must have some sort of ESP as I am currently undertaking a complete assessment of the Duke Ellington recordings owned by Sony Music, and in parallel with the Doris Day playlists creating a chronological series on Duke in the same manner! The digital series is called “Duke Ellington In Order,” and will soon be launched with a 44-track playlist of his earliest Columbia, Okeh and Victor recordings."

Chuck further told me:

"... we are taking the best available sources and transfers we have - many of them excellent - and sprucing them up for these new DSP playlists. ...we are utilizing all of the vault resources at our disposal - including the remasters done by our best engineers through the years - and presenting the recordings in a way that collectors can enjoy them (whether as single downloads/streams or by making their own custom albums by plucking tracks from multiple playlists). The idea, of course it to put up EVERY track by the artist so they’re available.

Insofar as Ellington and the 1947 period goes, YES: we will get to that point and I will make sure that everything is laid out neatly and chronologically. Once we get to that period in his career there are some unreleased surprises that I’d like to integrate into the playlists, to keep it interesting for those Ellingtonians who love the music!"

I have long looked with dismay at the way Ellington's pre-1940 recordings are presented on streaming services and YouTube: a mishmash of poorly presented, often pirated, inaccurately labelled sides. These steps by Sony Music Entertainment mean that at last Ellington's work will be curated properly and presented professionally.

Yes, it's a shame these works aren't being reissued on compact disc but that would be expensive, impractical and apart from an inexplicable fetish for 'vinyl', the market has turned (for now) decisively away from physical product.

In terms of Ellington's legacy, it is to streaming that future generations will look and therefore right and proper it is to these platforms Sony has turned. It is not so much that Duke Ellington's is 'serious music' but, rather, music that repays serious attention. It is music for the ages and with this new project it can continue to find new audiences. As Duke Ellington himself would undoubtedly say:

"Chuck Granata. Thank you very much for Chuck Granata."

More news on this project as it comes in...