Duke Ellington - Orchestral Works (1970)

Erich Kunzel conducts The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in this 1970 recording. This album stands as one of the more successful attempts to merge jazz and orchestral music. This kind of thing has the potential to go horribly wrong. It manages to mostly avoid the "cheese" trap, due in part to Duke Ellington's direct involvement. He contributes beautiful piano work throughout and the rhythm section, brought forward a bit more than you'd expect, is very strong.

When this album was released on CD in 1989, five bonus tracks of "Poetic Commentary" by Duke Ellington himself were added. They fit in nicely and do a lot to explain the context of the pieces, without pulling you out of the mood that the original album tracks create.

While not directly related, check out this cool TV commercial for Zenith's Dual Dimension Circle of Sound, from 1970, the same year this album was released, that stars the man himself, Duke Ellington:



Duke Ellington - Orchestral Works (1970)
1. Poetic Commentary A (1:38)
2. New World A'Coming (11:16)
3. Poetic Commentary B (2:32)
4. Harlem (14:14)
5. Poetic Commentary C (1:27)
6. Stanza 1: The Golden Broom (10:15)
7. Poetic Commentary D (1:16)
8. Stanza 2: The Green Apple (4:26)
9. Poetic Commentary E (1:29)
10. Stanza 3: The Handsome Traffic Policeman (5:56)

91.42MB RAR archive
MP3: Variable bitrate (233.5kbps average)
Audiograbber 1.83.1 w/LAME 3.97 (--preset fast extreme)

DOWNLOAD
Password: p-l-m.blogspot.com