BLACK WEEK, MARRON AND BEIGE

Duke Ellington - Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue

All the might of the war machine that was the Duke Ellington Orchestra in this piece, which is the combination of two songs that have always been the ensemble's highlights: "Diminuendo In Blue" and "Crescendo in Blue," enhanced by a beautiful solo from Paul Gonsalves, considered by many boppers a true precursor. Gonsalves died in 1974, nine days before the Duke himself passed away. The two had been great friends for decades, and his death, due to a heroin overdose, was kept hidden from Ellington, who was by then very ill. Gonsalves was one, perhaps the only soloist of the decades-long band, capable of obtaining from the Duke the space for an unusually long solo by the standards of big bands of the time.

During the triumphant return of the Duke to the stage at the Newport Jazz Festival in the blessed year of 1956, he had space for a tenor solo that lasted six times longer than a normal solo, with the reserved audience, mostly white, starting to dance wildly even on their chairs, setting the stage for the upcoming hysterics of bands and soloists of the then yet-to-be-born rock'n'roll... The drummer and the bassist, Sam Woodyard and Jimmy Woode, kept the frenzied rhythm on which saxes, trumpets, and trombones "swayed like a palm tree," as Paolo Conte would later divine in 1981, making way for the great Paul who entered jazz history not only for his fabulous career but especially for that midnight solo at the Newport Festival, in the blessed year of 1956.

Enjoy this delight for the ears and the eyes...