DUKE ELLINGTON — Anatomy of a Murder (review)

DUKE ELLINGTON — Anatomy of a Murder album cover Album · 1959 · Jazz Related Soundtracks Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
js
The musical genre known as ‘crime jazz’ was gathering steam in 1959 when Columbia Pictures reached out to Duke Ellington and asked him to compose the music for “Anatomy of a Murder’. Duke was a natural for this job as many of the composers who worked the crime jazz field were borrowing heavily from the sounds of Ellington’s musical world. Needless to say, Duke’s resulting soundtrack was a success and lead to more work for him in this field. Billy Strayhorn is the co-composer on here, and certainly Ellington’s best work goes down when Strayhorn is involved. The tracks on here are relatively short, there are very few solos, so it is really down to Duke and Billy’s composing and orchestrating skills to make this one fly, and this is also why this is one of Duke’s more unique records, its almost all composition and very little jamming.

Lots of variety on here, slamming rock-n-roll backbeats with blaring horns and bawdy burlesque vamps make up the more aggressive tracks. Elsewhere, soft sounds that hang in the air indicate suspense, mystery or trepidation. There are some cool sexy jazz passages that display the Ellington band’s superior skills with ensemble tone colors and solo soliloquies from some of Duke’s top soloists, especially the extra slinky alto saxophone of Johnny Hodges and the classical violin of Ray Nance. The ensemble on here is one of Ellington’s best bands with well known names such as Clark Terry, Harry Carney, Paul Gonsalves, Russell Procope and many more veterans of the Ellington approach. One particularly novel tone color that adds an air of mystery on side two is the delicate sounds of the celesta played by Strayhorn and Ellington.
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