Miles Davis once said that the history of jazz could be told in four words: “Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker.”
And while Satchmo’s contributions to jazz might have been far behind him in 1964, Hello, Dolly! would become his most commercially successful record.
In the fall of 2004, I was a guitarist in an emo band that somehow made it onto my school’s advanced Jazz Band. The first sheet of music handed to me was “Basie Straight Ahead” (which is not on this album), and I quickly realized how in over my head I was. And it wasn’t just me–it took the entire band five months to be able to play the entire song through.
So, where the previous Duke record I listened to was a collection of his compositions played by another group of players, Ellington ’55 is a legitimate Duke Ellington record, with the Duke himself behind the piano and the men who played with him playing his tunes the way they played them.
And there’s a huge difference between Ellington’s band and anyone else.
I do love me some jazz. Although, as you’re likely to see later on, the subgenre swing does not get too much attention from me. My jazz of choice tends to veer more toward cool, hard bop, and various strands of avant-garde. Although, having played in the jazz band at my high school, I can appreciate good swing when I hear it. And for the most part, Benny Goodman’s Greatest Hits compiles good swing. At times, it teeters dangerously close to clarinet-led monotony, each composition starting to sound the same after a while.