Charles Mingus Charles Mingus completed the 1950s with an astonishing series of releases in 1959 – Blues and Roots, followed by Mingus Ah Um and finally, Mingus Dynasty. He kept up this pace for several years culminating in 1963 with Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus and his masterwork, The Black Saint and The Sinner Woman. […]
Duke Ellington
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Jazz at 100 Hour 58: Still Swinging – Ellington, Hodges, Gonsalves, Carter in the 1960s (1960 – 1966)
Duke Ellington – Max Roach – Charles Mingus Duke Ellington and Benny Carter, whose careers stretched back to the 1920s, continued to be vital musical presences in the 1960s. In this hour we will hear examples of their late career work and that of two veteran Ellingtonians, alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges and tenor saxophonist Paul […]
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Jazz at 100 / The Jazz Messenger – The Porgy and Bess Show
Tags: Archie Shepp, Arkestra, Ben Webster, Bill Evans, Bill Frisell, Billie Holiday, Branford Marsalis, Cab Calloway, Coleman Hawkins, DuBose Heyward, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Free Bridge Quintet, George Gershwin, Gerald Wilson, Gil Evans, Herbie Hancock, Ira Gershwin, Jimmy Smith, Joe Henderson, John Coltrane, Johnny Hartman, Joni Mitchell, Kurt Elling, Louis Armstrong, Mal Waldron, Mel Torme, Miles Davis, New Vision Sax Ensemble, Nina Simone, Patricia Barber, Porgy & Bess, Sammy Davis Jr., Sonny Rollins, Sun RaCab Calloway as Sportin’ Life In the mid-1930’s, George Gershwin acquired the rights to the play Porgy by DuBose Heyward, based on his own novel of 1925. Gershwin’s great American opera, Porgy and Bess debuted in 1935 with lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. For some period of time, the themes of domestic violence, […]
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Jazz at 100 Hour 35: Big Bands of the 1950s (1950 – 1957)
Paul Gonzalvez with Duke Ellington at Newport 1956 Woody Herman disbanded the Second Herd in 1949 and, while Stan Kenton and Duke Ellington managed to keep a big band on the road through the 1950s, Count Basie disbanded his band at the start of the decade but assembled a new one in a few years. […]
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Jazz at 100 Hour 31: My Brainwaves in His Head, and His in Mine – Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn (1941 – 1967)
Duke Ellington – Billy Strayhorn Duke Ellington was the well-spring that flowed through many decades of jazz. In 1938, Ellington found his soul-mate in composer/arranger Billy Strayhorn. By the early 1940s, Strayhorn combined with bassist Jimmy Blanton and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster to reinvigorate both Ellington and his band. In the next hour, we will […]
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Jazz at 100 Hour 14: Beyond Category – Duke Ellington in the 1930s (1931 – 1940)
Duke Ellington – Ben Webster In the last hour, we heard Count Basie emerge as an exciting new voice from Kansas City. In this hour, we return to New York to follow Duke Ellington’s innovative path through the 1930s as he experiments with longer musical forms while building one of his greatest bands featuring tenor […]
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Jazz at 100 Hour 9: Up in Harlem – Duke Ellington (1927 – 1930)
Tags: Duke Ellington, jazz at 100Duke Ellington In previous programs in this series, we have listened to Stride pianists and jazz orchestras from New York. In this hour, we’ll return to Harlem to listen to maybe the most important band leader in jazz history and one of the most significant composers of the music – Duke Ellington. We are joined […]