Duke Ellington and his Orchestra • Columbia Vocal Rarities

The finest singers to be regularly featured with Duke Ellington’s orchestra were Ivie Anderson, Joya Sherrill, Herb Jeffries, and Al Hibbler with Ray Nance being the best of his singing instrumentalists. Other than Nance, none are heard from on Columbia Vocal Rarities. The 25 selections are taken from Ellington’s two postwar periods with the Columbia label (1947-52 and 1956-62). This collection is a bit more unusual than one might expect at first glance for 10 of the 15 performances taken from the earlier period are alternate takes that were mostly just previously available on small collectors’ labels. One gets to hear the Ellington Orchestra accompanying a wide variety of vocalists: Nance (singing on four songs including “You’re An Antidisestablishmentarianismist”), Woody Herman (“I Fell And Broke My Heart”), Chester Crumpler, Dolores Parker, Lloyd Oldham, Betty Roche, and Lu Elliott. The singer on “Put Yourself In My Place” is excellent but her identity is unknown and not Kay Davis or Dolores Parker as has been listed elsewhere. The songs range from novelties to blues, but none caught on as hits or standards. There are some short solos along the way from the likes of Johnny Hodges, Jimmy Hamilton and Nance, but unfortunately the personnel is not given.

The 1956-62 period is represented by Margaret Tynes (whose haunting wordless singing on “Pomegranate” is worthy of Yma Sumac), Ozie Bailey, Jimmy Grissom (quite effective on “Rock City Rock”), Lil Greenwood, and Milt Grayson, none of whom were destined for immortality. And, perhaps just to show that he really was human, Duke Ellington “sings” “I’m Afraid Of Loving You Too Much” and “Joog Joog” in 1950. One cannot imagine that these two tentative performances were meant to ever be released. Concluding this CD are a pair of real singers (Sarah Vaughan and Nat King Cole) collaborating on a live version of “Love You Madly” from 1951 (the only time that they ever recorded together) and, not too surprisingly, cutting all of the other vocalists.

Duke Ellington and his Orchestra • Columbia Vocal Rarities
Jasmine 2850
www.jasmine-records.co.uk

Scott Yanow

Since 1975 Scott Yanow has been a regular reviewer of albums in many jazz styles. He has written for many jazz and arts magazines, including JazzTimes, Jazziz, Down Beat, Cadence, CODA, and the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, and was the jazz editor for Record Review. He has written an in-depth biography on Dizzy Gillespie for AllMusic.com. He has authored 11 books on jazz, over 900 liner notes for CDs and over 20,000 reviews of jazz recordings. Yanow was a contributor to and co-editor of the third edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz. He continues to write for Downbeat, Jazziz, the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, the Jazz Rag, the New York City Jazz Record and other publications.