Music / Album Review of the Sony Legacy Landmark "Live at Newport" Performances from Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, Ella Fitzgerald and Lionel Hampton, Exclusively Available for 1st Time Digitally on iTunes.
Article by Joseph Timmons: Xombiewoof Magazine
If you know anything about Jazz, where it comes from and how it began, you would be well versed in the importance of The Newport Jazz Festival. Since its inception as the "First Annual American Jazz Festival" in 1954, the Newport Jazz Festival set the standard for large scale outdoor summer music gatherings. Subsequent music festivals from Newport Folk through Montreux, Monterey Pop, Woodstock, Coachella and beyond have Newport Jazz to thank for establishing the concept and reality of a music community coming together for a shared outdoor concert experience.
Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, celebrates the 60th Anniversary of the Newport Jazz Festival this summer with the first digital release of six classic "Live at Newport" albums, available exclusively on iTunes: iTunes.com/NewportJazz.
Jazz impresario and Newport Jazz Festival founder George Wein called Duke Ellington's 1956 concert at Newport, "the greatest performance of Ellington's career," adding that the music "stood for everything that jazz had been and could be." The digital edition of Ellington at Newport: The Original Album restores the record to its original sequence while adding four live performances that first appeared on Duke Ellington and The Buck Clayton All Stars at Newport (a companion album released in 1956).
Additionally, two of the exclusive new releases: Ellington At Newport: The Original Album and The Dave Brubeck Quartet: Newport 1958--have been newly remastered in 24-bit and Mastered for iTunes, this ensures that the music is delivered to listeners with increased audio fidelity that more closely replicates what the artists, recording engineers and producers intended. The Dave Brubeck Quartet: Newport 1958, originally released on Columbia Records, has also been remastered and is now available for the first time digitally. Remastered in 24 bit for iTunes, Brubeck's concert performance is a tribute to the music of Duke Ellington.
Personally, I feel the true significance of this historic release is the masterful work of Duke Ellington is once again brought to a new generation that may not understand the value of what he, as a composer and performer did for a form of music that is now a foundation of so many art forms and has inspired bot only his contemporaries, but artists and generations to come. Let’s look at the list of albums; it is a timeline of critical importance to today’s Jazz music, and all music as a whole-
· Duke Ellington - Newport 1958
· Duke Ellington - Live At Newport 1958
· Ellington at Newport: The Original Album
· The Dave Brubeck Quartet: Newport 1958
· Lionel Hampton - Reunion at Newport 1967
· Ella Fitzgerald - Newport Jazz Festival: Live At Carnegie Hall July 5, 1973
Unquestionably, these albums presented by Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment is both inspiring and exotic, like the voice of Ella Fitzgerald herself, Often referred to as the "First Lady of Song" and the "Queen of Jazz," she was noted to have a vocal range spanning three octaves and a glimmer in her eye that would captivate anyone in her gaze, her renditions in Jazz would be the talk of the town. The percussion craftsmanship of Lionel Hampton and his styled tempos, rhythms and measures set precedence in Jazz, and the work of Dave Brubeck and later, The Dave Brubeck Quartet would change the face of Jazz forever, a music once referred to as “A Devils Jig”, due to these giants of performance, would become a standard for composition, performance and give birth to new musical formations with each following generation of artists inspired by their work, and that of the master himself, Duke Ellington.
With these six classic "Live at Newport" albums, now available exclusively on iTunes at iTunes.com/NewportJazz, you can personally own this treasured collection instantly, and quite affordably, no need to search them out, just one click away from a lifetimes work, that will last forever.
Be immortalized in the moment, this is what heaven sounds like, swing baby swing!
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