This Week on Jazz Spectrum – Duke Ellington’s “Far East Suite”

By Fritz Byers

    
The trope of a distinguished artist’s late-career flourishing is familiar, and it can take on the aspect of a patronizing pat on the head.  But the authentic instances of this phenomenon are among my favorite things in all of art – Beethoven’s late quartets; Chagall’s late stained-glass work at the Chichester Cathedral and his marvelous Tapestry at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago; Professor Richardson would expect me to mention Sophocles.

After writing, o, say, a thousand or so short masterpieces in the jazz idiom over thirty years, by the late 1950s Duke Ellington was increasingly drawn to longer forms. He wrote and debuted his first extended suite, Black, Brown, and Beige, in 1943, but it was not captured on record in its entirety until the 1958 recording on Columbia, featuring Mahalia Jackson. I can only infer an actual connection, and perhaps it’s merely a coincidence, but that’s right around the time when Duke returned in a concentrated way to long-form compositions: among them, “Such Sweet Thunder,” (1957), based on Shakespeare’s plays, which includes the ravishing Ellington-Billy Strayhorn piece, “The Star-Crossed Lovers;” and The Queen’s Suite” in 1959, again showcasing a lovely Ellington-Strayhorn miniature, “The Single Petal of a Rose.”

The early 60s brought other longer works, all composed and recorded while Ellington shepherded his band all over the world in perhaps the original Never-Ending Tour. In 1963, under the auspices of the State Department, the Orchestra toured the Middle-East, with dates in Pakistan, India, Iran (then Persia), Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), and Turkey. The next year, the band was off to Japan for an extended tour. 

Early in 1964, at a concert in England, Duke debuted a four-part suite, initially called “Impressions of the Far East,” comprising two tunes each by Duke (“Amad and Depk”) and Strayhorn (“Agra” and “Bluebird of Delhi”). It appears that’s where things sat for a couple of years; Ellington scholars haven’t found much to explain what happened in the next two years, with those tunes or with the other impressions Ellington and Strayhorn took from their near- and far-East travels.

But by December 1966, when Ellington took his orchestra to a recording studio to lay down those impressions, the suite had expanded to nine pieces. The result – “The Far East Suite” – is among Duke and Strayhorn’s greatest achievements, which, given their entire oeuvre, is, to engage in colossal understatement, saying a good bit.  

That Strayhorn, who was severely ill when the pieces were finalized, passed less than half-a-year after the recording gives a special poignancy to the Suite. But it is not mere sentiment to say that the work is the surpassing statement of the composers’ maturity, a tapestry (if I can borrow that word) of sonic richness and diversity that is unrivaled in all of jazz. 

This week on Jazz Spectrum, we’ll hear the Suite in its entirety and in its proper order. The opening piece, Duke’s “Tourist Point of View,” is a characteristically intricate orchestral arrangement, a great example of Duke’s ability to create complex intonations with only a few instruments, across only a few measures, which in turn provide a lush setting for a featured soloist. On this tune, it’s the tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves.

Next is Strayhorn’s “Bluebird of Delhi,” which Duke claimed really was a direct reflection of Strayhorn’s having heard a mynah bird singing near his hotel in India. Billy assigned the role of the bird to Jimmy Hamilton and his versatile clarinet; it’s quite an impersonation.

Strayhorn’s “Isfahan” is among the most beautiful pieces in jazz, and it is the one from the suite that has become a true standard. But this version, featuring Johnny Hodges’s gorgeous sound and penetrating melodic instincts, remains the definitive one. (If you’re of a mind to do so, check out Jimmy Rowles’s piano reduction of the tune on Jimmy Rowles Plays Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.)

Next, three pieces by Duke: Depk, which he traced to a children’s dance he witnessed in Amman, Jordan; “Mount Harissa,” which is one of the best recorded demonstrations of Duke’s brilliance as a pianist, a truth often obscured by his many gifts as a composer and bandleader, and by his willful subordination of his own flair on the instrument; and “Duke’s Blue Pepper,” most notable for the trumpeter Cat Anderson’s high-note bravado.

Then Strayhorn is back with his tune, “Agra,” which features the orchestra’s longest-serving member, Duke’s permanent companion, the baritone saxophonist Harry Carney. Of thousands of recorded examples of Harry’s playing, this is my favorite, featuring Harry’s command of both the deep-end richness and the rumbling growl of the big horn’s lowest register.

Next-to-last is Duke’s “Amad,” which features the trombonist Lawrence Brown’s solo artistry as the highlight of a moody, middle-eastern tonal palette.

And finally, the extended experiment, “Ad Lib on Nippon,” the only tune that I can directly trace to the 1964 tour of Japan. Duke wrote it that year with one of the band’s reed stars, Jimmy Hamilton. The eleven-and-a-half-minute piece is a four-part mini-suite with many riches, most notably Duke’s prominent piano forays, which I hear, as the title suggests, as an improvised tonal impression of Japan.

Ellington fanatics often land on the “Suite” as Ellington’s greatest late-life achievement. Fair enough. And if you’re just coming to the Duke’s music (and to Strayhorn’s compositions), you’re bound to be entranced.