The Great Summit: The Master Takes [Original recording remastered]

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
For starters, The Great Summit produced not only itself, both with this Master Takes set and the two-CD Complete Sessions, but also a later summit, Count Basie and Ellington's tandem showdown, First Time. On its own, though, The Great Summit needs no later chapters to justify its celebrated standing in jazz annals. This was and is terrifically important music: Ellington is in grand form between recording the Paris Blues soundtrack and cutting ace sessions like Duke Ellington Meets Coleman Hawkins and Duke Ellington and John Coltrane in late 1962. For his part, Armstrong was on leave as well, resting up between ceaseless tours as a bona fide jazz superstar and veteran. So Ellington and Armstrong join hands, backed by the latter's band (Trummy Young on trombone, Barney Bigard on clarinet, Mort Herbert on bass, and Danny Barcelona on drums), tackling 17 of Duke's tunes. Armstrong's sweet, rolling vocal growl gives the tunes endless hugs, just as his band both cuts plump solos and then backs way off so Ellington can throw down alternately swinging and unapologetically modernist solos himself. --Andrew Bartlett

Album Description
Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington the most important artists in the history of jazz and the two most influential American musicians of the 20th Century. Because of their centennials (1999 for Duke and 2000 for Louis), their great legacy is celebrating a worldwide rennaissnce. And this month, they are the focus and the continum in Ken Burns' JAZZ, a 20-hour documentary to be broadcast on PBS. In April, 1961, these two giants got togethr in a New York studio for their only encounter. Louis brought his trumpet, voice and the all-stars with Trummy Young and Barney Bigard. Duke brought his pianistic talents and a considerable canon of great compositions. The magic that transpired over one night and the following afternoon was an historic simgularity.

This disc contains all 17 master takes that made during those magical sessions, newly remixed from the original tapes with 24-bit/96kHz mastering for maximum fidelity, far superior to the previous mid-price CD issue.

PERSONNEL:
Louis Armstrong (trumpet,vocals), Trummy Young (trombone), Barney Bigard (clarinet), Duke Ellington (piano), Mort Herbert (bass), Danny Barcelona (drums).

Tracks:

Duke's Place
I'm Just A Lucky So And So
Cottontail
Mood Indigo
Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me
The Beautiful American
Black And Tan Fantasy
Drop Me Off In Harlem
The Mooche
In A Mellow Tone
It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)
Solitude
Don't Get Around Much Anymore
I'm Beginning To See The Light
Just Squeeze Me
I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)
Azalea

Amazon.com

For starters, The Great Summit produced not only itself, both with this Master Takes set and the two-CD Complete Sessions, but also a later summit, Count Basie and Ellington's tandem showdown, First Time. On its own, though, The Great Summit needs no later chapters to justify its celebrated standing in jazz annals. This was and is terrifically important music: Ellington is in grand form between recording the Paris Blues soundtrack and cutting ace sessions like Duke Ellington Meets Coleman Hawkins and Duke Ellington and John Coltrane in late 1962. For his part, Armstrong was on leave as well, resting up between ceaseless tours as a bona fide jazz superstar and veteran. So Ellington and Armstrong join hands, backed by the latter's band (Trummy Young on trombone, Barney Bigard on clarinet, Mort Herbert on bass, and Danny Barcelona on drums), tackling 17 of Duke's tunes. Armstrong's sweet, rolling vocal growl gives the tunes endless hugs, just as his band both cuts plump solos and then backs way off so Ellington can throw down alternately swinging and unapologetically modernist solos himself. --Andrew Bartlett

Album Description

Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington the most important artists in the history of jazz and the two most influential American musicians of the 20th Century. Because of their centennials (1999 for Duke and 2000 for Louis), their great legacy is celebrating a worldwide rennaissnce. And this month, they are the focus and the continum in Ken Burns' JAZZ, a 20-hour documentary to be broadcast on PBS. In April, 1961, these two giants got togethr in a New York studio for their only encounter. Louis brought his trumpet, voice and the all-stars with Trummy Young and Barney Bigard. Duke brought his pianistic talents and a considerable canon of great compositions. The magic that transpired over one night and the following afternoon was an historic simgularity.

PERSONNEL:
Louis Armstrong (trumpet,vocals), Trummy Young (trombone), Barney Bigard (clarinet), Duke Ellington (piano), Mort Herbert (bass), Danny Barcelona (drums).

Customer Reviews:

ellington & armstrong.......2007-01-16

simply wonderful - two of my favorite musical artists....period. this proves why their fans have endured.

One of my favorite cds.......2007-01-15

If you're not into Jazz, you'll still love this CD.

awesome.......2007-01-04

the title says it all. two giants of jazz at their best. positively sublime. a must for all jazz lovers.

It's hard to beat the classics.......2006-08-15

Sure, these guys have been gone a long time and this was recorded a decade before that, If you've listened to any classic jazz, you've almost certainly heard cuts from this album. It's still a joy to listen to and a gem to hear it in its entirity. The compositions are all Ellington's, but Satchmo and Duke make the music theirs together. Mercifully, there are no "bonus track" outtakes here, but plenty of music nonetheless. Aside from the pure talent of Armstrong and Ellington -- and their sidemen -- there is a chemistry between these two very different jazz legends. To my ear, there is an enthusiasm at their only pairing in their respective 50 year careers, and a spontaneity that gives it a unique energy. Underproduced by today's standards and under-rehearsed by their standards, the production is clean and energic. Recorded in RCA's great Manhattan studios and masterfully remastered, the recording itself is second to none. Groundbreaking? No, but still a landmark because of what it is. Best of all, though, it's just really, really wonderful to listen to.

High Peak.......2006-05-05

I write this as a Louis Armstrong fan. I respect Duke Ellington, but I haven't heard nearly as much of his output as I have of Louis Armstrong's. My judgment is more about Satchmo's performance here than about Ellington's.
I consider this an example of Armstrong showing a musical colleague how much he cares about all music. At this point in Armstrong's career he had committed most of his repertoire to Long-Playing vinyl. It's easy to forget that, in 1961, many of the classic 78s of the jazz era had still not been transferred to LP, and it is easy to forget that such transfers were not necessarily cleaned up for playback. This is my roundabout way of saying that, in re-recording much of his own material, Armstrong, throughout the fifties, was playing music he'd played since the twenties. He and the All-Stars, his small combo founded in the forties, were well attuned to each other and waxed some of the greatest performances of Armstrong's career, live or in the studio. But Armstrong had only been recorded with Ellington very rarely previously. I am not certain, but I think there are literally a couple of songs he and Ellington played live on the air in the late 1930s, and I wouldn't be very surprised if they played once or twice without being recorded at other times. But they'd never really sat down and worked out a set until 1961, when they were both in New York at the same time and had the opportunity. The songs on this album were not songs Armstrong played in his stage shows and he didn't make records of them. But he was not caught short here. He knew this material, either because he learned it for this project or because he'd been listening to this music for years, and he understood it. The marvelous thing is he clearly cared for it. Armstrong sets aside his personality for THE GREAT SUMMIT, or, more to the point, he set aside everybody else's expectations and interprets the lyrics in all their somber beauty. His trumpet is earnest here. His trumpet is always full-bodied, but on this project, Louis Armstrong is not, if you will, playing the showman, but expressing, through his trumpet, the music of another genius. It may be the most giving performance of his career. And that's saying a lot, given that his career is full of high peaks.
I sometimes put this CD on when I go to bed at night. It sounds like New York City. There's a breeze, some laughter in the air, and cameraderie. Two musical innovators commenting on what they see, for all to hear.

Music:

Music

Music