Soul Station Feature: Duke Ellington

Deep South Suite, Pt. 4 Happy Go Lucky Local

There is no one else like Duke Ellington in jazz history, a musician, band leader and brilliant composer who was and remains,many different things to many different audiences. At least in my view. And in that view, I have always heard an uncompromising, sometimes daring musical approach. This track certainly shows that he was a mighty pianist, capable of playing something like a very hard blues, and doing so with a dissonance that is usually just associated with Monk or Sun Ra. After Duke's piano, the band really roars, for afterall, this is about a train! Eventually this music would be transformed into Night Train. This version comes from a V-Disc and was originally recorded at Carnegie Hall in 1946!

DJ π (a.k.a. Paul Yamada)