Colors In Rhythm - Mercer Ellington

 

Azure

Colors In Rhythm

Mercer Ellington and His Orchestra

Coral Records CRL 57293

1959

Trumpets - Willian "Cat" Anderson, Hal Baker, Clark Terry (also heard on flugelhorn)

Trombones - John Sanders, Britt Woodman, Quentin Jackson

Reeds - Russell Procope, alto sax & Japanese flute; "Alto Jazz Great," alto sax; Jimmy Hamilton, clarinet & tenor sax; Hal Ashby, tenor sax; Harry Carney, bariton sax

Rhythm - Jimmy Jones, piano; Bill Strayhorn, celeste; Gus Johnson, drums; Wendell Marshall, bass; Les Spann, guitar & flute

From the back cover: Music lacking content, be it jazz or not, goes 'round and 'round, arrives at no particular place at no particular time, is full of sound and fury and signifiers nothing. The music of Ellington is often full of sound and fury – and all the other elements relative to life – but always signifies something. His is a music of content.

Duke Ellington is an observer of life and his times who misses little that is happening in the world around him; therefore, when he sets pen to manuscript paper, he writes with a consciousness of self and the culture as a whole. The music which results – a matter of power, finesse and individual flair – speaks fo people and things seriously, sometimes humorously, always with understanding. Drawing most heavily from the area of human situations, many of them culled from the segment of our culture that he knows the best – that of the American Negro – he uses the color resources of this orchestra to musically parallel and underscore them.

"Ellington always has based his music on a knowledge of those performing it," reports son Mercer Ellington. "He plays up the strength of each member, while simultaneously thinks in terms of the whole band. This way, he can gauge what sounds will emerge in description and interpretation of the particular feeling or set of feelings he happens to be after at the time. His main concern in music, after all, is feeling, to create compositions and arrangements which depict feelings/emotions, whether his procedure in doing so is right according to established course or not... This is his value – interpreting feeling, musical."

"For as long as I can remember," Mercer continued, "the Ellington world, sometimes a world unto itself, has been my world. Though I have had many interests, it was almost inevitable that I be drawn to music, notably the music of Ellington. I grew up around the band. Most of my summer vacations as a teen-ager were spent with Ellington on the road. Through Ellington and the guys in the band, I learned much about music and life.

"Ellington gave me direction in my writing; most of the time he didn't openly tell me what to do, but would intimate where I should go and what I should do. "Keep your ears open and listen; you have to be a good listener before you become any kind of writer," he used to say.

"As time went by, I learned more and more from and about my father. I came to realize that he was a man with faults, like all others, but as an artist, he wasn't to be challenged. Under that cosmopolitan, sophisticated exterior lies a rare dedication to his art.

"A few years back, when Ellinton let me sit in his trombone section and play trombone parts on my Eb Horn, I was able to see him and the band from an interesting vantage point. As a sideman, I found that the band interpreted his music in a manner that could not be notated. The men added individual touches here and there, yet were extensions of Ellington. And like knight of old, this assemblage of usual royalty – who realize their position – put novices to the test!

"Above all, my short stint with the varsity showed me how close the men are to each other; how the instinctively feel each other and unconsciously react to Ellington; how each man's sound and way of playing eventually comes to fit and contribute something to the Ellington fabric. Here is community creation at its best, though the leader remains a moving force.

"Having grown up behind Ellington," as Mercer so aptly puts it, has not been as easy as it might seem to an outsider. Being a giants son has and continues to be ever so demanding in what it suggests. One seems duty-bound to live up to the ideal created by the model, or at least contribute something of significance. It is almost expected that the son or daughter of a great will inherit some of that talent of the gifted one and carry on.

The responsibility often has weighed heavily on Mercer's shoulder. There was a time in his career when a desire to create a new style consumed him. If he could do this, he felt, his job would be done; his identity established. As time passed, however, he became more anymore enmeshed in his father's mode of thinking – so much so he was hardly aware it was happening.

"I found that I only was completely happy when writing for an Ellington-oriented band - i.e. Charlie Barnet – for Ellington or myself," he explained. "It frightened me a little to find it uncomfortable expressing myself outside the Ellington circle. For a while, I felt it was a shell that I had gotten myself into. But two years ago, take or leave a month, I came to the realization that it wasn't a shell at all; it was where I belonged, where I fit into the theme of things.

"The name Ellington has meant musical progress for over three decades. He has established a tradition of soulful, substantial music. No longer am I concerned with bringing into being a new style; my aim now is to perpetuate the tradition and build upon it."

Following this format, Mercer is doing something valuable for the pubic and himself. On then hand, his work is keeping in the pubic ear what should be there; and in doing so, he is moving along lines that are comfortable and natural for hum, and most likely to be creatively satisfying. At 40, after years of indecision, having bands and breaking them up, moving in and out of the music business, Mercer's path is clear.

Colors In Rhythm, like his first Coral album – Stepping Into Swing Society, CRL 57255 – is just another step toward his goal. Adhering to the procedures established in the first set, Ellington-oriented/influenced writers were encouraged to be apart of the project – in this case, Luther Henderson, Dick Vance, Jimmy Jones, Jimmy Hamilton, Ellington's alter-ego Billy Strayhorn – and of course, Mercer. Unlike the first set, this program place more emphasis on the arranger's handiwork. "This album turns out to be a cutting contest for the arrangers; one tried to outdo the other," say Mercer.

The material – Duke Ellington compositions, Mercer Ellington originals, arrangements on standard by other authors – in treatment bears the markings of Ellinton, the elder. The color-filled voicings, the phrasing of the ensembles and sections which in inflection remind so much of the man voice, the rhythmic approach, the techniques – "wah-wah" brass, the sound of the sections and how they are blend – the overall texture, pace and all are unmistakably Ellington.

"The approach to this material is best described as modern-primitive," Mercer pointed out. According to  his definition, the modern primitive avails himself to certain modern ideas, harmonically and rhythmically, in concert with the older, well established basics of jazz.

"The mode of musical thinking calls for flexibility," insisted young Ellington. "its' not what is right but what fits the particular situation. A piece of music should in some way form a picture. To complete the picture, in the best way possible, there has to be flexibility. In all of music, and especially in jazz, we're dealing with emotions, and the artist must be able to deal with them as he see fit. Rules sound be considered as a rood map with writing music; something to be referred to, but not strictly followed. Ellington has lived by this code, and it has given him the freedom to blaze new trails. His work and that of his orchestra provide testimony to this fact." 

The best performance in this program, like the best of Ellington, possess a rare unity, a completeness; all the elements – the wring, the solos, the feeling of feelings portrayed, flow on into the other – impound natural and have more than a little poetry about them. All is subservient to getting the message across; the fexibility, a matter of course. I especially submit Marron, Azure, Blue Serge and  Golden Cress for you attention.

Discussing the serviceability of this album, Mercer commented: "Running through a variety of moods – romantic, exotic, straight swing – with the aid of Ellington men, we believe something valuable has been recorded: a muscly honest offer which reflects our position at the present time and indicates the direction in which we will be going in coming yers. By following up what Ellington has brought to music, with or without Ellington musicians, we hope to leave behind something which will be remembered." – Burt Koran - Co-Editor, The Jazz World (Ballantine)

Coral Rock:  Arranger - Jimmy Jones - Solos: Clark Terry, trumpet; Jimmy Hamilton, clarinet; Gus Johnson, drums

Maroon: Arranger - Mercer Ellington - Solos: "Alto Jazz Great," alto sax; "Cat" Anderson, trumpet

Cherry Pink (And Apple Blossom White): Arranger - Dick Vance - Solos: Clark Terry, flugelhorn; Jimmy Jones, piano

Mood Indigo: Arranger - Jimmy Hamilton - Solo: Jimmy Hamilton, clarinet

Dawn Of A Greenhorn: Arranger - Mercer Ellington - Solo Russell Procope, Japanese flute

Black And Tan Fantasy: Arranger - Dick Vance - Solos: Hal Baker, trumpet; Jimmy Hamilton, clarinet

Azure: Arranger - Luther Henderson - Solo: Harry Carney, baritone sax

Blue Serge: Arranger - Billy Strayhorn - Solos: Clark Terry, flugelhorn; Hal Bake, trumpet; Harry Carney, bariton sax; Gus Johnson, drums; Jimmy Jones, piano 

Aqua-Tonic: Arranger - Luther Henderson - Solos: Jimmy Hamilton, clarinet; Les Spann, flute

The Moon Was Yellow: Arranger - Mercer Ellington - Solos: Billy Strayhorn, celeste; Hal Ashby, tenor sax

Golden Cress: Arranger - Luther Henderson - Solos: "Cat" Anderson, trumpet; Hal Ashby, tenor sax; Jimmy Jones, piano