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Duke Ellington: Piano in the Foreground
Columbia Legacy/Sony Music CD, Rs. 499
DUKE ELLINGTON was the most prolific composer and the leader of the greatest big band in the history of jazz. He was also a consummate pianist. But how consummate was not obvious from the bulk of his work.
His virtuosity, evident to discerning listeners in his quiet efficiency at the piano, became more obvious in later years when he started taking frequent solos with his big band; but in 1961 and 1957, when the 18 tracks here were recorded, it rarely surfaced unless he performed in a small group. It does so here, set in the standard piano trio of jazz, completed by Jimmy Woode or Aaron Bell on bass and Sam Woodyard on drums.
"In the foreground", he is still far more restrained than most regular leaders of piano trios or solo pianists. His style is not so ornate and his melodic improvisation sparser and more restrained. While giving its due to this staple of jazz, he focuses quite a bit on subtle changes of rhythm and volume and staggered spacing of notes as alternative modes of improvisation.
Most of the numbers are in a quieter, more reflective mood than the rip-roaring stuff that formed the bulk of his big band repertoire. A couple of tracks feature solos or intros on bass and some others have more audible evidence of the support of bass and drums. On others, quiet efficiency, in which discerning listeners can find enough virtuosity, is the hallmark of the work of Woode/Bell and Woodyard.
Ahmad Jamal: I Remember Duke, Hoagy and Strayhorn
Telarc/Music Gallery, CD Rs. 575
BORN IN 1930, Ahmad Jamal has led a piano trio throughout his jazz career. Noted for his attention to spacing between notes as a means of expression and for sudden modulations of volume, he often obscured his basic sparse style with florid phrases in his improvisations and sometimes flashily loud, percussive notes.
On this album recorded in 1994, leading a trio made up by Ephraim Wolfolk on bass and Arti Dixson on drums, Jamal is uncharacteristically restrained, in a quiet mood. He pays tribute, as the title indicates, to three giants of jazz and popular music, Duke Ellington, Hoagy Carmichael, and Billy Strayhorn, Ellington's friend. A couple of other composers of popular music also get a look-in. The Duke is represented by six compositions, Strayhorn and Carmichael by just one each. But Carmichael is the theme of Jamal's own composition "I Remember Hoagy", and several of the Ellington pieces are interpolated with a short phrase from his signature tune, Strayhorn's "Take the `A' Train".
Such interpolations or "quotes" figure in the improvisation on many of the Ellington tracks. Most of the numbers are gentle-paced and quiet, with Jamal's trademark modulation of volume ranging around a rather soft base. Melodic improvisation runs right through, even where Jamal is playing the basic theme. Most tracks begin with a slower solo piano intro followed by the bass and drums joining in the theme. An occasional bass solo intro adds further variety to the variations of pace and volume and the melodic improvisations.
JAZZEBEL
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