Search - Duke Ellington :: Black Brown & Beige

Black Brown & Beige
Duke Ellington
Black Brown & Beige
Genres: Jazz, Pop, Gospel
 
  •  Track Listings (18) - Disc #1
  •  Track Listings (21) - Disc #2
  •  Track Listings (19) - Disc #3

Following on the heels of the smashing, creative apex caught on The Blanton-Webster Years, Black, Brown & Beige encompasses segments of two suite-length works, Ellington's first long-form works. The segments from the s...  more »

     
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CD Details

All Artists: Duke Ellington
Title: Black Brown & Beige
Members Wishing: 0
Total Copies: 0
Label: RCA
Release Date: 10/25/1990
Album Type: Original recording remastered
Genres: Jazz, Pop, Gospel
Styles: Swing Jazz, Contemporary
Number of Discs: 3
SwapaCD Credits: 3
UPCs: 078635664126, 035628664129

Synopsis

Amazon.com
Following on the heels of the smashing, creative apex caught on The Blanton-Webster Years, Black, Brown & Beige encompasses segments of two suite-length works, Ellington's first long-form works. The segments from the set's title suite are rife with ambition, scoping historical motions while creating merely musical brilliance (small consolation indeed for not capturing the full flush of African American history's drama!). Billy Strayhorn's arranging and orchestration begins shading the Ellington band throughout this set, making it a gorgeously large unit that could spread its arms to embrace the richest melodies even while setting up soloists who tear the place up on their respective instruments. The bands are some of the best, featuring a well-built fullness that shows Ellington's complete awareness of each voice, from open-bore trumpet blasts to slack-toned saxophones. This is the Ellingtonian sound that Blanton-Webster sketched out and began to nurture. In its fullness, it's some historic big music, charting the ways bandleaders would use their sections for decades. And the creative successes taught Ellington that he could indeed proceed developing such large-scale, later works like The Far East Suite. --Andrew Bartlett

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CD Reviews

Nice, but ...
jfarles | 02/01/2000
(4 out of 5 stars)

"it can't compare with the Blanton-Webster set. It has its moments, but the bigger orchestra and more vocals make this unit a little closer to the level of other swing bands from 1945."
Good, but slightly misleading title
jfarles | Scotland | 05/07/2009
(4 out of 5 stars)

"The songs contained within these CDs are excellent examples of this stage in the career of Duke Ellington, but I think both the title and Amazon's track listing are misleading (or in the case of the musical samples, incorrect). Of the three CDs worth of music, only the first 4 tracks are from B,B,&B. There are also 4 from the "Perfume Suite", which debuted in Carnegie in 1945, on the second CD. The rest are normal Ellington fare from the period. I think this should be made clearer. An accurate track listing would do much to clear this up.

Overall, great stuff for an any Ellington fan and generally good remastering.

"