DUKE ELLINGTON

DUKE ELLINGTON

Diminuendo And Crescendo In Blue

Everyone knows the story about this performance at Newport, I’ll not rehash it here. I purchased the album a few years after its release and this tune became the theme song for  a group of friends and musicians I knew. I hadn't heard it for a while and when I did hear it again, no longer a 14 year old kid ,I realized that Paul Gonsalves’ 27 chorus solo  gets very repetitious and actually boring  after about 10 choruses. Ain’t nobody could play 27 choruses of a tune and be creative throughout.Never the less it’s a classic, and swings its ass off

Ellington At Newport 1956 Often regarded as the best performance of his career, in 1956, Duke Ellington and his band recorded their historic concert at the Newport Jazz Festival, revitalizing Ellington's waning career. Jazz promoter George Wein describes the 1956 concert as "the greatest performance of Ellington's career... It stood for everything that jazz had been and could be." Ellington had lately been connecting the songs "Diminuendo in Blue" and "Crescendo in Blue" in a medley via a tenor solo from saxophonist Paul Gonsalves. At Newport, Gonsalves summoned a 27-chorus workout so inspired and transcendent that the audience was practically rioting by the time he had finished. Orchestra and audience both remained at a fever pitch for the rest of the show (vividly captured on the live album Ellington at Newport),

• Harry Carney - Baritone sax

• John Willie Cook - Trumpet

• Duke Ellington - Piano

• Paul Gonsalves - Tenor sax

• Jimmy Grissom - Voice

• Jimmy Hamilton - Clarinet

• Johnny Hodges - Alto sax

• Quentin Jackson - Trombone

• William "Cat" Anderson - Trumpet

• Ray Nance - Voice, trumpet

• Russell Procope - Alto sax

• John Sanders - Trombone

• Clark Terry - Trumpet

• James Woode - Bass

• Britt Woodman - Trombone

• Sam Woodyard - Drums