Russell Procope

Born: August 11, 1908

UMe To Release New Frank Sinatra Double Vinyl Set ��The Giants Of Jazz��

August 9, 2025

INCLUDES RARE PHOTOS & ORIGINAL ARTWORK UMe, in conjunction with Frank Sinatra Enterprises, announces a new exclusive double-vinyl collection from Frank Sinatra, featuring his historic collaborations with Count Basie and Duke Ellington, entitled The Giants Of Jazz, out September 26, 2025. This special release includes a pair of timeless albums��It Might As Well Be Swing with ...

Duke Ellington's Concert of Sacred Music

by Chuck Lenatti
June 1, 2025

In 1964, Dean D.J. Bartlett and the Reverend John S. Yaryan invited Duke Ellington and his orchestra to present a concert to consecrate the renovated Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill in San Francisco during a year-long festival of Grace. At first, Duke demurred. In his autobiography, Music Is My Mistress (Da Capo, 1976), Ellington ...

Jack Chambers: Rethinking Duke Ellington

by Jack Kenny
May 20, 2025

Jack Chambers is professor at the University of Toronto and teacher of music and language. His jazz writings include the prize winning biography Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis (Da Capo Press, 1998) and Bouncin' with Bartok: The Incomplete Works of Richard Twardzik (Mercury PR, 2008). Sweet Thunder: Duke Ellington's Music In Nine Themes ...

Copenhagen 1958

By Duke Ellington

Label: Storyville Records
Released: 2024
Track listing: Take the A Train (Theme); Newport Up; My Funny Valentine; Perdido; Sophisticated Lady; Sonnet to Hank Cinq; What Else Can You Do With a Drum; Rockin' in Rhythm; Prelude to a Kiss; Things Ain't What They Used to Be; El Gato; Hi Fi Fo Fum; Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue; I Can't Get Started; Body and Soul; A Little Blues; Sophisticated Lady; Mood Indigo.

Kansas Smitty's: Things Happened Here

by Chris May
June 25, 2020

Kansas Smitty's is the house band at a London jazz bar of the same name. Band and bar are fronted by the American-Italian alto saxophonist, clarinetist and bass clarinetist Giacomo Smith, who with guitarist David Archer wrote most of the material on this album. The band's style embraces swing era Kansas City through to more recent ...

Saxophone Summit: Street Talk

by Chris May
September 23, 2019

Since coming together in 1999 to celebrate the late-period work of John Coltrane, the aptly named Saxophone Summit has lost only one original member. Michael Brecker passed in 2007 and was replaced by Ravi Coltrane, who has in turn been replaced by Greg Osby. The other principals, Joe Lovano and Dave Liebman, are unchanged, as is ...

Duke Ellington & His Orchestra: Rotterdam 1969

by Jack Bowers
October 11, 2016

Here's a succulent and long-hidden treat for Duke Ellington aficionados: a wide-ranging and reasonably well-recorded concert performance by the Ellington orchestra from 1969 at the Do Doelen Concert Hall in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Many of Ellington's tried-and-true favorites are here, along with a number of lesser-known themes such as tenor Paul Gonsalves' feature, “Up Jump"; “Come ...

"Lone Wolf" Finds Plenty to Chew On

by Jack Bowers
March 8, 2013

With Betty sidelined by a bad cough, it was up to me to seek out local jazz events in February, and I managed to find a couple of pretty good ones, starting February 7 at the University of New Mexico's Keller Hall where SuperSax New Mexico performed for the third time in Albuquerque. As you may ...

Delfeayo Marsalis: Sweet Thunder

by Raul d'Gama Rose
April 11, 2011

Was Delfeayo Marsalis undertaking a task too challenging when he recorded music from one of Duke Ellington's most beloved albums to make Sweet Thunder? Gunther Schuller offers a doctrine that seems to suggest this has been so. Apparently the size and composition of the ensemble lead to this mishap. Would it have been remiss, to replicate ...