Ellington In Order: Update 3

Some aficionados of Duke Ellington's music have pointed to omissions from the first volume of Ellington In Order. 

As series producer Charles L. Granata explains, however, they may be "...under the impression that because those labels were at one time owned by ARC that Sony Music still has the rights to them. That is incorrect; those labels were sold to EMI way back in the late 1930s, when CBS formed their radio business and bought the old ARC and revived the Columbia name in the United States. 

There are definitely some perplexities when it comes to all of this label ownership business, so I understand the confusion! For example, in France, EMI distributed some recordings under the 'Columbia' and 'CBS' banners.Therefore, they issued the Complete Duke Ellington  series on LP under the CBS label. Many of the tracks are Columbia-owned masters. However, because EMI also owned the rights to the Pathé and associated label recordings, they were able to 'co-mingle' the sides that EMI had the French rights to with the Columbia-owned sides that they had licensing for in France."

We must look elsewhere, therefore, to other sources for these Cameo and Pathé sides. Duke Ellington In Order remains, however, the most ambitious and comprehensive issue/re-issue programme of the works of Duke and the programme rolls on. Details of Volumes 2 and 3 in the series will be available soon. In the meantime, Ellington Live is building a discography of the series, volume by volume, which may be found here.