March 20, 2013

  • Review: Ellington's Harlem & Other Orchestral music

     

    Ellington: Black, Brown, and Beige; Harlem; 3 Black Kings; The River; Take the ‘A’ Train
    Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra/JoAnn Falletta
    Naxos 8.559737
    Total Time:  78:30
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

     

    The history of American Classical music invariably ends up arguing over jazz and serious composition and which deserves its place as “America’s Music.”  The work of Gershwin in the 1920s and 1930s certainly opened the door for jazz to sneak into the concert hall more frequently, though it often does so through the work of French composers enamored of jazz during this period.  The big band of Duke Ellington was certainly one of the great ensembles of the period when the Cotton Club was at its height.  His work as a composer can be marked by a number of great classic song (Mood Indigo, Satin Doll, Sophisticated Lady..to name but a relative few) but Ellington also wrote several larger scale works, often closer to concept jazz works often exhibiting a sense of history and musical style not heard in the concert hall at that point.

    The first of these is Black, Brown, and Beige (1943), the second selection on this new release.  Originally conceived as a huge symphonic work 50 minutes in length, Ellington trimmed the work into a more manageable tight suite that was then orchestrated by Maurice Peress.  The piece is a musical “history” of African-Americans.  The opening movement refers to work songs and spirituals.  The central movement shifts to music reflecting on the war contributions of African-Americans in war and has Ives-ian quotations of popular song.  The final movement, “Beige,” suggests the nightlife of the Harlem Renaissance and suggests the deeper philosophical thinking of Ellington in a work that intends to remind the world of the equal contributions to American life of all people.  In the performance here, one is given the opportunity to rediscover a modern masterpiece that melds jazz and art music effortlessly with the sort of sinuous harmonies more familiar from the composer’s songs. 

    Harlem (1950) opens up the disc with its big, brassy jazz hearkening back to the Cotton Club era with its rather evocative “tone poem” sensibility and harmonic structures quite unexpectedly dense at times.  This is the sort of large-scale canvas that would come into the concert hall in now more familiar jazz-inspired works of Leonard Bernstein.  But Ellington’s build up of large harmonic structures seems to find closer parallels in the avant-garde music of say Carl Ruggles, especially in the brass writing.  The BPO brass certainly do themselves proud in this performance that is among the finest to date.

    The central portion of the program contains two rarer works that may broaden an appreciation of Ellington’s concert music.  The first is a ballet, Three Black Kings that Ellington began as a eulogy for Martin Luther King but left incomplete (though a misprint on the back of the packaging lists 1943 for a date).  His son, Mercer Ellington, completed the work which begins with a movement depicting one of the Magi of the New Testament (an almost perpetual motion piece with repetitive cells almost minimalistic), and shifts to a depiction of King Solomon (with a section that feel more like it belongs to the 1960s world of Mancini and instrumental pops) before moving into the elegy for Dr. King (with a definite 1960s vibe and jazzier overtones and harmonies).  The work feels like an overview of pops light-instrumental work with more arbitrary titles.  That still does not lessen the gorgeous music in the ballet as a whole which has a real dramatic sensibility in its final moments.  The final movement also features that great rich harmony with just a little bit of dissonance (similar to Quincy Jones’ film work from the period).

    The River was commissioned by Alvin Ailey’s American Ballet Theater in 1970.  Ellington provided a work original for piano and big band that was then subsequently orchestrated for full orchestra by Ron Collier.  The piece offers a variety of scenes that are set along the Mississippi, though as with all of Ellington’s larger works, there is often an implied deeper significance that lifts up the history of African-Americans.  The music has a similar sound to that of the previous ballet with orchestral jazz and some of the great brass writing recalling the big band and swing era.  The music is of course filled with engaging ideas in rich harmonic dress making for a rather delightful pops work.

    The recording is amply filled out by what must be intended as an encore, Ellington’s arrangement of Strayhorn’s classic Take the ‘A’ Train.  The piece features some great solo work by Sal Andolina, alto sax; Tony Di Lorenzo, trumpet; and Amy Licata, violin.  The progression from more concert-like orchestral works to the orchestral jazz styles of the final ballet works programmed here makes this an even more fitting final track.

    Erich Kunzel recorded some of Ellington’s work with the Cincinnati Symphony for MCA a while back and that is an album well worth seeking out.  Simon Rattle also recorded Harlem for EMI/Angelas well, but this new Naxos album in many ways surpasses them both with great sound and committed performances and coupled with even rarer Ellington orchestral treasures that while perhaps a bit too light for some tastes will certainly delight fans of orchestral jazz music.  JoAnn Falletta continues to make some of the best recordings in the Naxos catalogue of which this will certainly be considered a classic.  Highly Recommended.