“By 1947, when Duke Ellington jumped to Columbia after a brief stay at Musicraft (following six years at RCA Victor), he had one of the best bands anyone ever led, in any category of music. The tragedy was that Columbia squandered its opportunity to use them. The group spent almost a full year cutting short-form single tracks, and didn't get around to doing any of the more challenging music that Ellington was writing until the December 24, 1947 session that yielded Liberian Suite, after which it got caught in the Musician's Union recording ban and wasn't in the studio again until 1949. Liberian Suite brought Ellington to a new level of recognition. He'd begun writing multi-section suites in the early '40s, but Liberian Suite was his first international commission, from the government of the African nation, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its founding by freed American slaves; it was the first formal manifestation of a process by which Ellington would be a virtual musical ambassador to the world by the end of the next decade. As to the music, it is not Ellington's most sophisticated, but it is filled with bracing rhythms, juicy parts for the horns and saxes, and one stunning vocal part. ...”
2011 November: Duke Ellington - "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)", 1943, 2011 September: "Take the A Train" - Duke Ellington, 2015 January: Home Movies of Duke Ellington Playing Baseball (And How Baseball Coined the Word “Jazz”), 2017 November: Secret Music: On Duke Ellington’s The Queen’s Suite., 2020 June: Bundle of Blues (1933), Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life (1935), Black & Tan (1929)
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