account
basket 2
Challenge Records Int. logo
All Too Soon: The Music of Duke Ellington

Rodney Whitaker

All Too Soon: The Music of Duke Ellington

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Origin Records
UPC: 0805558278921
Catnr: ORIGIN 82789
Release date: 06 March 2020
Buy
1 CD
✓ in stock
€ 19.95
Buy
 
Label
Origin Records
UPC
0805558278921
Catalogue number
ORIGIN 82789
Release date
06 March 2020
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
EN
DE

About the album

For the second installment of an ambitious five-CD project, undertaken to observe his fiftieth birthday, master bassist Rodney Whitaker convenes a world-class sextet to pay homage to the oeuvre of Duke Ellington. It’s a subject that Whitaker came to know intimately during his 9-year tenure with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, regarding it as his Ph.D in Ellingtonia through performance, deep study, and spirited conversation with Wynton Marsalis and bandmates through those years. With a front line of modern jazz masters - Brian Lynch, Michael Dease and Diego Rivera, the fiery, modern aesthetic of drummer Karriem Riggins, along with pianist Richard Roe and vocals by Rockelle Fortin, Whitaker celebrates the timelessness of Ellington's works by allowing them to live and breathe through the freewheeling, "cutting session" atmosphere he created for the session.
Für die zweite Folge eines ehrgeizigen 5-CD-Projekts, das zu seinem fünfzigsten Geburtstag realisiert wurde, beruft der Meisterbassist Rodney Whitaker ein Weltklasse-Sextett ein, um dem Werk von Duke Ellington zu huldigen. Es ist ein Thema, das Whitaker während seiner neunjährigen Tätigkeit beim Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra sehr gut kennengelernt hat. Mit einer Reihe von modernen Jazzmeistern - Brian Lynch, Michael Dease und Diego Rivera, der feurigen, modernen Ästhetik des Schlagzeugers Karriem Riggins, dem Pianisten Richard Roe und dem Gesang von Rockelle Fortin - feiert Whitaker die Zeitlosigkeit von Ellingtons Werken, indem er ihnen erlaubt, durch die von ihm geschaffene freizügige, "cutting session"-Atmosphäre zu leben und zu atmen.

Artist(s)

Rodney Whitaker (bass)

Internationally renowned bassist and Origin Records recording artist, Rodney Whitaker, currently holds the titles of Professor of Jazz Bass and Director of Jazz Studies at Michigan State University where he has built one of the leading jazz degree programs and performing faculty in the world. He is considered one of the leading performers and teachers of the jazz double bass in the United States. He is also the Artistic Director of the Michigan State University Professors of Jazz, former Artistic Advisor of Jazz @ Wharton Center, Director of Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Civic Jazz Orchestra and a former member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Whitaker received his first national recognition performing with the Harrison/Blanchard Quintet. Building on his Detroit roots...
more
Internationally renowned bassist and Origin Records recording artist, Rodney Whitaker, currently holds the titles of Professor of Jazz Bass and Director of Jazz Studies at Michigan State University where he has built one of the leading jazz degree programs and performing faculty in the world. He is considered one of the leading performers and teachers of the jazz double bass in the United States. He is also the Artistic Director of the Michigan State University Professors of Jazz, former Artistic Advisor of Jazz @ Wharton Center, Director of Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Civic Jazz Orchestra and a former member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Whitaker received his first national recognition performing with the Harrison/Blanchard Quintet.
Building on his Detroit roots and enormous talent, Whitaker went on to earn an international reputation as one of the world’s finest jazz double bass performer. He completed seven-year tenure as bassist with Wynton Marsalis’ Septet and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. He has toured the world over the last twenty-five years, collaborating and performing with legendary jazz artists such as Jimmy Heath, Eric Reed, Cyrus Chestnut, Vanessa Rubin, Kathleen Battle, Dianne Reeves, Cassandra Wilson, Diana Krall, Jon Faddis, Donald Harrison, Terence Blanchard, Rodney Jones, Wycliffe Gordon, Kenny Burrell, Bob James, Benny Golson, Regina Carter, Pat Matheny, Nicholas Payton, Jimmy Cobb, Joshua Redman, Stephon Harris, Johnny O’Neal, Marcus Belgrave, James Carter, Steve Turre, Claudio Roditi, Junko Onishi, Harry Allen, Ronnie Matthews, Chick Corea, Kenny Garrett, Kevin Mahogany, Ingrid Jensen, Barry Harris, Ron Blake, Jeff Clayton, Dana Hall, Gerald Wilson, Sean Jones, Niki Harris, Wessell Anderson, Don Vappie, Johnny O’Neal, Cedar Walton, Renee Rosnes, Randy Brecker, Rickey Woodard, Bobby Shew, Gary Smulyan, Joe LaBarbera, Randy Napolean, Peter Martin, Nnenna Freelon, Donald Byrd, Branford Marsalis, Greg Hutchinson, Carl Allen, Herlin Riley, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Terrell Stafford, Tim Warfield, Bruce Barth, Jon Carl Hendricks, Roy Hargrove, the late greats: Dizzy Gelispie, Mulgrew Miller, Tommy Flanagan, John Lewis, Marian McPartland, Donald Walden, Joe Henderson, Hank Jones, Frank Morgan and Betty ‘Bebop’ Carter as well as performing with leading symphony orchestras world-wide. Whitaker has also toured internationally as a featured performer with the Roy Hargrove Quintet. In addition, he has appeared and presented master classes at the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE) conferences.
Rodney is one of the hardest working and swinging bass players on the scene and has recorded with great musicians such as Roy Hargrove, Pat Metheny and Wynton Marsalis. Featured on more than 100 recordings — from film to compact discs — Whitaker’s film scores, China, directed by Jeff Wray, was released on PBS Fall 2002 and Malaria and Malawi, released on PBS Fall 2010. Also, Whitaker has a DVD release featuring Michigan State University’s Jazz Department entitled, “Inside Jazz”. In 2011, he was nominated for an EMMY for the ‘Original Music’ category, “Malawi and Malaria: Fighting to Save the Children” produced by Robert Gould and Sue Carter.
A proven and committed jazz educator, Whitaker has presented numerous master classes across the nation at locations such as Duke University, Howard University, University of Iowa, University of Michigan, Barbican in London, the New School (NY), Lincoln Center, and the Detroit International Jazz Festival. In addition, he is a consultant with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in the development of the jazz education department, and has served on the faculties of University of Michigan and Julliard Institute of Jazz.
In 2006, he was nominated for the Juno Award, Canada’s equivalent to the Grammy, for his work on “Let Me Tell You About My Day,” produced by Alma Records. Whitaker collaborated with musicians Phil Dwyer (musician) and Alan Jones on the album, which was nominated for Traditional Jazz Album of the Year.
Now based in East Lansing, Whitaker continues to serve many of the talented in the state of Michigan. His legacy of teaching promises to be distinguished with former students currently performing with jazz greats such as Wynton Marsalis, Dianne Reeves, Pat Matheny, The Count Basie Orchestra and Stephon Harris.
Whitaker attended Wayne State University, studied with trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, bassists-Stephen Molina, Ralph Armstrong, the late Herbie Williams (trumpeter) and the late Robert Gladstone (bassist).

less

Composer(s)

Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington influenced millions of people both around the world and at home. He gave American music its own sound for the first time. In his fifty year career, he played over 20,000 performances in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East as well as Asia. Simply put, Ellington transcends boundaries and fills the world with a treasure trove of music that renews itself through every generation of fans and music-lovers. His legacy continues to live onand will endure for generations to come. Winton Marsalis said it best when he said 'His music sounds like America.' Because of the unmatched artistic heights to which he soared, no one deserved the phrase “beyond category” more than Ellington, for it aptly describes his life as well. He was...
more

Duke Ellington influenced millions of people both around the world and at home. He gave American music its own sound for the first time. In his fifty year career, he played over 20,000 performances in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East as well as Asia.

Simply put, Ellington transcends boundaries and fills the world with a treasure trove of music that renews itself through every generation of fans and music-lovers. His legacy continues to live onand will endure for generations to come. Winton Marsalis said it best when he said "His music sounds like America." Because of the unmatched artistic heights to which he soared, no one deserved the phrase “beyond category” more than Ellington, for it aptly describes his life as well. He was most certainly one of a kind that maintained a llifestyle with universal appeal which transcended countless boundaries.

Duke Ellington is best remembered for the over 3000 songs that he composed during his lifetime. His best known titles include; "It Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing", "Sophisticated Lady", "Mood Indigo", “Solitude", "In a Mellotone",and "Satin Doll". The most amazing part about Ellington was the most creative while he was on the road. It was during this time when he wrote his most famous piece, "Mood Indigo"which brought him world wide fame.

When asked what inspired him to write, Ellington replied, "My men and my race are the inspiration of my work. I try to catch the character and mood and feeling of my people".

Duke Ellington's popular compositions set the bar for generations of brilliant jazz, pop, theatre and soundtrack composers to come. While these compositions guarantee his greatness, whatmakes Duke an iconoclastic genius, and an unparalleled visionary, what has granted him immortality are his extended suites. From 1943's Black, Brown and Beige to 1972's The Uwis Suite, Duke used the suite format to give his jazz songs a far more empowering meaning, resonance and purpose: to exalt, mythologize and re-contextualize the African-American experience on a grand scale.

Duke Ellington was partial to giving brief verbal accounts of the moods his songs captured. Reading those accounts is like looking deep into the background of an old photo of New York and noticing the lost and almost unaccountable details that gave the city its character during Ellington's heyday, which began in 1927 when his band made the Cotton Club its home.''The memory of things gone,'' Ellington once said, ''is important to a jazz musician,'' and the stories he sometimes told about his songs are the record of those things gone. But what is gone returns, its pulse kicking, when Ellington's music plays, and never mind what past it is, for the music itself still carries us forward today.

Duke Ellington was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1966. He was later awarded several other prizes, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969, and the Legion of Honor by France in 1973, the highest civilian honors in each country. He died of lung cancer and pneumonia on May 24, 1974, a month after his 75th birthday, and is buried in theBronx, in New York City. At his funeral attendedby over 12,000 people at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Ella Fitzgerald summed up the occasion, "It's a very sad day...A genius has passed."


less

Press

Play album Play album
01.
Cotton Tail
04:17
(Duke Ellington) Rodney Whitaker, Brian Lynch, Diego Rivera, Michael Dease, Richard Roe, Karriem Riggins, Rockelle Whitaker
02.
All Too Soon
03:41
(Duke Ellington) Rodney Whitaker, Brian Lynch, Diego Rivera, Michael Dease, Richard Roe, Karriem Riggins, Rockelle Whitaker
03.
Take the A Train
05:28
(Duke Ellington) Rodney Whitaker, Brian Lynch, Diego Rivera, Michael Dease, Richard Roe, Karriem Riggins, Rockelle Whitaker
04.
Just Squeeze Me
07:01
(Duke Ellington) Rodney Whitaker, Brian Lynch, Diego Rivera, Michael Dease, Richard Roe, Karriem Riggins, Rockelle Whitaker
05.
Mood Indigo
06:12
(Duke Ellington) Rodney Whitaker, Brian Lynch, Diego Rivera, Michael Dease, Richard Roe, Karriem Riggins, Rockelle Whitaker
06.
It Don't Mean a Thing
04:37
(Duke Ellington) Rodney Whitaker, Brian Lynch, Diego Rivera, Michael Dease, Richard Roe, Karriem Riggins, Rockelle Whitaker
07.
Harlem Air Shaft
04:22
(Duke Ellington) Rodney Whitaker, Brian Lynch, Diego Rivera, Michael Dease, Richard Roe, Karriem Riggins, Rockelle Whitaker
08.
Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me
04:30
(Duke Ellington) Rodney Whitaker, Brian Lynch, Diego Rivera, Michael Dease, Richard Roe, Karriem Riggins, Rockelle Whitaker
09.
Perdido
07:00
(Duke Ellington) Rodney Whitaker, Brian Lynch, Diego Rivera, Michael Dease, Richard Roe, Karriem Riggins, Rockelle Whitaker
10.
Azure
04:51
(Duke Ellington) Rodney Whitaker, Brian Lynch, Diego Rivera, Michael Dease, Richard Roe, Karriem Riggins, Rockelle Whitaker
11.
Come Sunday
06:14
(Duke Ellington) Rodney Whitaker, Brian Lynch, Diego Rivera, Michael Dease, Richard Roe, Karriem Riggins, Rockelle Whitaker
12.
Caravan
05:08
(Duke Ellington) Rodney Whitaker, Brian Lynch, Diego Rivera, Michael Dease, Richard Roe, Karriem Riggins, Rockelle Whitaker
show all tracks

You might also like..

Nimble Digits
Geoff Stradling & the StradBand
Stanco's Time
Anthony Stanco
Back Burner
Martin Budde
Magic Light
Chuck Owen & Resurgence
Groove Junkies
Ben Patterson Jazz Orchestra
Falling to Earth
Last Word Quintet
Deep in the Soil
Jordan VanHemert
Influences
Jared Hall
Behind the Voice
Clarence Penn
Songs My Mom Liked
Anthony Branker & Imagine
Dedication
Bruce Barth Trio
Umbra
Matt Otto