Description:
The companion piece to Piano In the Foreground, the 1961 trio session recorded about a year after this collection, Piano In the Background is more than a bit of a misnomer, since Duke Ellington 1899 1975 is featured at the outset of all fourteen selections herein. Moreover, the Maestro establishes this set's mostly ebullient mood on a special piano, one with ninety one keys instead of the customary eighty eight. The disc's first nine numbers, which made up the original LP, include some of the best known items in Ellington's voluminous songbook, but here, thanks to sterling new arrangements in some cases by the estimable West Coast bandleader composer trumpeter Gerald Wilson and impeccable engineering, they've never sounded more vibrant. The Ducal galaxy of star soloists shines throughout this newly expanded edition of Background, whose five bonus tracks boast the previously unreleased "Harlem Air Shaft," yet another Ellington essential. |