Mixing jazz and classical was nothing new for Duke Ellington. The great jazz pianist/composer/orchestra leader always had admirers from the classical world–among his contemporaries, such wildly diverse voices as Stravinsky, Grainger, and Milhaud were fans–and Ellington himself wrote works that blurred any such distinctions (Black, Brown and Beige, Anatomy of a Murder, and so on, as well as A Tone Parallel to Harlem). Not insignificantly, this recording’s arranger, Luther Henderson, worked with Ellington as an orchestrator and arranger, and a number of top-flight mainstream jazz names appear here as well–among them vocalist Lena Horne, trumpeter Clark Terry, pianist Geri Allen, violinist Regina Carter, tenor sax players Joshua Redman and Joe Lovano, Lewis Nash on drums, and Peter Washington on bass. The jazz credentials are, to inject one of Louis Armstrong’s favorite words into a Duke project, “solid”.
It’s clear that Simon Rattle loves this music, and the Birmingham players usually hold up their end, though they have an easier time with works such as the aforementioned Harlem and the chromatic contours of Sophisticated Lady than they do with selections like Take the “A” Train or That Doo-Wah Thing (adapted from It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing). But with projects like this, I always wonder exactly who the intended audience is. Jazz fans? Classical enthusiasts? Then again, this disc came on the heels of the Duke Ellington birth centennial in 1999, and anniversary years are always rife with strange salutes.
The biggest issue here, though, is sound. Except for Lena Horne’s vocals, which were done in a studio session in New York, the program was recorded at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall (whose acoustics are trumpeted in the notes). The orchestra’s sound is wide if not particularly deep, but it generally seems as if the jazz players weren’t miked individually, which is a real problem. In short, the production values reflect the “neither fish nor fowl” artistic concept, and in the final analysis serve the artists less well than they should.
