Vienna Art Orchestra presents Duke Ellington's Sound of Love
A concert as picture puzzle: Everything is there, the whole Ellington, and yet not totally there. But where it's not totally there, it's almost more totally there. Or nearly.
Red Garter, was the opening number on the Vienna Art Orchestra's Ellington program. However, who knows this almost kitschy cantilena for trombone that Ellington wrote in 1958 and that has hardly ever been played? This must be the unknown Ellington (although this piece happens to be by Billy Strayhorn, Ellington's musical twin brother), but you can look forever in the original version and never find this braying trombone interlude that suddenly blares out and sounds so much like Ellington. Or take Smada, another rarely-played Ellington composition, a leisurely feature number for clarinettist Russell Procope, transformed by the VAO into quick sweeping motion by Arkady Shilkloper, the Russian master among the world's horn soloists. Ellington sound, but totally in the style of the 1990s.
There's no doubt that the program mathias ruegg put together for the Vienna Art Orchestra to celebratc Duke Ellington's 100th anniversary is not simply a plagiarized reproduction, ruegg doesn't deliver us the reproduction, ruegg doesn't deliver us the original Ellington; he shows us his own, highly personal, continually new and surprising transmutations and reflections, ruegg has produced these adaptations and revivals of 20 compositions with loving respect and admiration, but also with the self-assurance of a musical uncle who has his own history, his own profile and his own place in modern jazz.
ruegg left the piano accompaniment out completely and he replaced Ellington's powerful blues and strident chords with the light and almost sketchy guitar work of Wolfgang Muthspiel. Elsewhere, he transformed Ellington's solo-pianc into big band format; for instance, by re-orchestrating as big band numbers three compositions that the master recorded in 1952 in trio with drummer Max Roach and bassist Charles Mingus for the famous Money Jungle, ruegg turned Very Special - a traditional blues built on a single riff - into a slalom course for alto saxophonist Harry Sokal, marked out by the brass. The ballad Warm Valley, he orchestrated with flutes, a warm saxophones and variously-muted trumpets to produce a whole range of impressionistic moods for saxophonist Andy Scherrer.
Little Max, that was once batted ping-pong style between Ellington and Max Roach, was transformed by ruegg into a smooth crescendo arching between the winds and the drumming of Mario Gonzi.
For a selection of Ellington piano pieces that are atypically rough, almost unruly, with almost the modern feel of a Thelonious Monk, ruegg demonstrated his own artistic virtuosity as an arranger. Again, everything is there, the Ellington tricks, the refined dovetailing of three brass lines, the whole palette of intricate sound colorations, the growl and wah-wah effects of trombone and trumpet, as well as the lasciviously drawn out ballad-portamenti of the saxophone. But none of this comes from Ellington, ruegg took the liberty of filling out the minimal piano trio with brass embellishments totally of his own invention. The result is amazing. The scores sound so much like Ellington, you'd almost think he wrote them himself.
Often it's just little touches? ruegg generally modernized the harmonies somewhat, brushing off the light layer of dust that had collected over the years on the Ellington Sound. Sometimes his revamps were even bolder. In the famous Rockin' in Rhythm, for instance, he cut in a longer passage from one of his own earlier compositions.
These are the types of playful tricks and refinements that mainly excite Ellington fans and ruegg afficionados, but that even appeal to normal listeners who may be less in the know. In this vein, ruegg took several of the most famous classics, ones that have been played to death over the years by almost every mainstream group but that naturally belong in any Ellington tribute - and he reduced them into some of the smallest formats; duos, trios or quintets. It's these catchy numbers - the kind that stick in your head and that you feel you've known forever, inside and out - that ruegg subjects to the most radical distancing from the originals, thereby endowing them with whole new dimensions.
In Mood Indigo, the brothers Muthspiel wield their guitar and trombone like a couple of street musicians, pulverizing this ballad into the free sound of noise-music.
Take the A-Train - a tune that has been played thousands of times and ranks as the Ellington Orchestra theme song appears as a high-speed duo by bass clarinettist Klaus Dickbauer and the young, super-virtuoso bass player Georg Breinschmid who just left the Vienna Philharmonic for the jazz branch.
The ballad Blood Count, for its part, underwent a radical purification cure, making the delicate melody, filled out with words by Anna Lauvergnac and paraphrased rather sparingly by Andy Scherrer, sound much more fragile and moving than the original, with its almost excessively plush brass background. This is reduction to the basics, a jettisoning of all the excess ballast that you sometimes find in Ellington's ballads.
Just like Ellington, ruegg has a special feel for playing up the strengths of his soloists. The examples are many: the dizzying high-altitude excursions of Bumi Fian, who shoots lightning bolts from his trumpet into the microphone like an angry Zeus; the exalting escapades of saxophonist Harry Sokal; Klaus Dickbauer's effervescent garlands on the clarinet; the clear sax lines of Andy Scherrer; the glisten and glow of trumpeter Matthieu Michel, ruegg gives each musician his rightful place in this Theater of Ellington. No one can beat Florian Brambock at wringing the heart out of After All, a ballad written by Ellington for the soul-stirring alto sax player Johnny Hodges. And the astute singer Anna Lauvergnac - who shows true virtuoso mastery of the minute but telling difference between full identification and perfect imitation - would have pleased woman-lover Ellington just as she pleases woman-lover ruegg, with her sultry interpretation of the ballad I'm Just a Lucky So and So.
Finally, along with bassist Breinschmid and Gonzi, saxophone player Herwig Gradischnig deserves special mention. It's plain to hear in the feature number Circle in Fourths that Gradischnig, who is as electric as he is electrifying, stands out as a new virtuoso among the young European saxophonists.
Numerous Ellington tributes will appear to mark his 100th birthday. Many of these will also be brilliantly recorded, have exceptional soloists and display a high level of technical expertise.But mathias ruegg's Ellington tribute amounts to something even more: It's a successful, intelligent and informative encounter with the music of one of traditional jazz history's most important composers. He handles Ellington's music like a heirloom lamp, rubbing it, buffing it, making it shine.
http://www.allmusic.com/album/duke-ellingtons-sound-of-love-mw0000604301https://www.allaboutjazz.com/duke-ellingtons-sound-of-love-tcb-music-review-by-jack-bowers.phpMatthias Rüegg's Vienna Art Orchestra have taken jazz fans on some genuine adventures, covering Anthony Braxton and Scott Joplin vividly within the span of an album. Here, they explore Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, presumably the more intimate sides of the two. Things are, as you might expect, quickly colorful, with a wild-ride swing taking the listener to emotional peaks and blaring precipices. It's not often one finds "Red Garter" and "Blood Count" among Ellington tributes, especially rendered with such a gigantic mix of sonorities. Then there's "Mood Indigo," played as a stellar duet between trombone and guitar that ranges over and riffs on the blues in a slow, plunger-mute bonanza. "Take the 'A' Train" is no less wonderful, made miniature in a bass clarinet and bass duo that rumbles with a bumpy rhythm, just like the rails to Harlem. Among Ellington tributes, Anthony Brown's rundown of the Far East Suite is an instant classic. This live session from the Vienna Art Orchestra is right behind Brown, standing tall in a crowded field of nods to the Duke.
--Andrew Bartlett
Editorial Review, Amazon.com
