Ellington Legacy Orchestra - Aarau 1999

I was contacted about this by Peter Ugrin, the son of trumpet and violin player Petar Ugrin (1944-2001) playing here. Peter is himself a violin player. There are two beautiful tracks by Petar on his page, in particular, "Ozri Se V Gnevu" is stunning!

Ugrin was the only one to possibly take the role of Ray Nance, playing both trumpet and violin. The band here is a star-studded one, including a handful of Ellingtonians, most notably Aaron Bell, Duke's longtime bass player, who's on piano here. John Lamb and most of the brass players were with Ellington at one time or the other, too. In addition, there's another late trumpet great, Benny Bailey, and the late great John La Porta who can be heard playing a beautiful clarinet solo. Charli Persip is a fine big band drummer - one of his first gigs was with Dizzy Gillespie's 1956/57 orchestra!

So let me dedicate this post to Petar Ugrin and to his family.
And please pay a visit to Peter Ugrin's page and hear the fine music there!



The Ellington Legacy Orchestra
Aarau (Switzerland)
April 17, 1999

"Celebrating Duke - A Tribute to the Ellington Orchestra"

Benny Bailey, Barry Lee Hall, Wayne Bargeron - trumpet
Petar Ugrin - trumpet, violin
Art Baron, Britt Woodman, Buster Cooper - trombone
Fritz Renold - alto sax, clarinet
Bobby Watson - alto sax
John La Porta - tenor sax, clarinet
Tommy Smith - tenor sax
Bernd Konrad - baritone sax
Aaron Bell - piano
John Lamb - bass
Charlie Persip - drums
Bill Berry - conductor

Such Sweet Thunder (Ellington-Strayhorn) [TT: 40:25]
01. Such Sweet Thunder (Cleo) (3:30) [Bailey]
02. Sonnet For Caesar (2:44) [La Porta]
03. Sonnet To Hank Cinq (1:50) [Woodman]
04. Lady Mac (3:57) [Renold, Bailey]
05. Sonnet In Search Of A Moor (2:15) [Lamb]
06. The Telecasters (2:52) [Konrad]
07. Up And Down, Up And Down (3:42)
(I Will Lead Them Up And Down) (Puck) [Bailey, Ugrin]
08. Sonnet For Sister Kate (3:01) [Baron]
09. The Star-Crossed Lovers (4:16)
(aka Pretty Girl) [Watson, Smith]
10. Madness In Great Ones (Hamlet) (4:03) [Bargeron]
11. Half The Fun (aka Lately) (4:19) [Watson, Bell]
12. Circle Of Fourths (3:46) [Smith]

Toot Suite (Duke Ellington) [TT: 25:05]
13. Announcement BB (0:25)
14. Red Garter (4:21) [Woodman]
15. Red Shoes (5:11) [La Porta, Ugrin]
16. Red Carpet (8:43) [Renold, Hall, Baron, Bargeron]
17. Ready Go (6:24) [Smith]

TT: 65:30

Sound: A
Recorded by Swiss Radio
Source: DRS2 Broadcast/1999
Lineage: FM > Tape > Minidisc > analogue to HD > GoldWave > CDR > EAC (secure) > FLAC (8)(asb)
Additional: EAC (secure) > Cool Edit Pro (centred all tracks, separated #13 from #14) > FLAC (8,asb,verify)
Shared on dimeadozen by ubu in January 2009

This project was initiated by Fritz Renold