Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Truckin' - Duke Ellington, Ben Webster
2. Cotton - Duke Ellington, Ben Webster
3. Accent on Youth - Duke Ellington, Ben Webster
4. In a Jam
5. Exposition Swing
6. Uptown Downbeat
7. Solitude - Jimmy Blanton, Duke Ellington
8. Stormy Weather - Jimmy Blanton, Duke Ellington Orchestra
9. Mood Indigo - Jimmy Blanton, Duke Ellington
10. Sophisticated Lady - Jimmy Blanton, Duke Ellington
11. You, You Darlin'
12. Jack the Bear
13. Ko Ko
14. Morning Glory
15. So Far, So Good
16. Conga Brava
17. Concerto for Cootie
18. Me and You
19. Cotton Tail
20. Never No Lament (Don't Get Around Much Anymore)
21. Dusk
22. Bojangles

Disc 2:

1. Portrait of Bert Williams
2. Blue Goose
3. Harlem Air Shaft
4. At a Dixie Roadside Diner
5. All Too Soon
6. Rumpus in Richmond
7. My Greatest Mistake
8. Sepia Panorama
9. There Shall Be No Night
10. In a Mellow Tone
11. Five O'Clock Whistle
12. Flaming Sword
13. Warm Valley
14. Across the Track Blues
15. Chloe
16. I Never Felt This Way Before
17. Without a Song - Jimmy Blanton, Duke Ellington, Ben Webster
18. My Sunday Gal - Jimmy Blanton, Duke Ellington, Ben Webster
19. Mobile Bay - Jimmy Blanton, Duke Ellington, Ben Webster
20. Linger Awhile - Jimmy Blanton, Duke Ellington, Ben Webster
21. Charlie the Chulo - Jimmy Blanton, Duke Ellington, Ben Webster
22. Lament for Javanette - Jimmy Blanton, Duke Ellington, Ben Webster

Disc 3:

1. Lull at Dawn
2. Ready Eddy
3. Sidewalks of New York - Jimmy Blanton, Duke Ellington, Ben Webster
4. Flamingo - Jimmy Blanton, Duke Ellington, Ben Webster
5. Girl in My Dreams Tries to Look Like You - Jimmy Blanton, Duke Ellington, Ben Webster
6. Take the "A" Train
7. Jumpin' Punkins
8. John Hardy's Wife
9. Blue Serge
10. After All
11. Bakiff
12. Are You Sticking?
13. Just A-Sittin' and A-Rockin'
14. Giddybug Gallop
15. Chocolate Shake
16. I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)
17. Clementine
18. Brown-Skin Gal (In the Calico Gown)
19. Jump for Joy
20. Moon Over Cuba
21. Some Saturday - Jimmy Blanton, Duke Ellington, Ben Webster
22. Subtle Slough - Jimmy Blanton, Duke Ellington, Ben Webster

Disc 4:

1. Menelik: The Lion of Judah
2. Poor Bubber
3. Five O'Clock Drag - Jimmy Blanton, Duke Ellington, Ben Webster
4. Rocks in My Bed - Jimmy Blanton, Duke Ellington, Ben Webster
5. Bli-Blip - Jimmy Blanton, Duke Ellington, Ben Webster
6. Rain Check
7. What Good Would It Do?
8. I Don't Know What Kind of Blues I Got
9. Chelsea Bridge
10. Perdido
11. C Jam Blues
12. Moon Mist
13. What Am I Here For?
14. I Don't Mind
15. Someone
16. My Little Brown Book
17. Main Stem
18. Johnny Come Lately
19. Hayfoot, Strawfoot
20. Sentimental Lady
21. Slip of the Lip (Can Sink a Ship) - Mercer Ellington
22. Sherman Shuffle

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17500 in Music
• Released on: 2004-04-05
• Number of discs: 4
• Formats: Box set, Import

Album Description
The complete and definitive edition of the studio recordings, with Ben Webster on tenor sax and Jimmy Blanton on bass. Only master takes, without alternates. 4 CD set

Customer Reviews

Fantastic CD's of a Fantastic Ellington Band
I have both this set and the more common RCA "Blanton-Webster Band" version of this peak Ellington band (The RCA set was issued on October 25, 1990, ASIN: B000003EO4). The Definitive Records set is much better than the RCA version.

The RCA version over-uses noise reduction to the point that the sound is muffled and bland. RCA should really be ashamed. What they should do is reissue the set using the excellent remastering that was employed for their massive Centennial box set (they did this with their "Mid-Forties" box set, which I love).

Definitive Records is located in Spain, but they easily ship to the USA or anywhere else. You can find them by plugging their name into your favorite web search engine. In this case, "Definitive" is the "Definitive" version of Ellington's Blanton-Webster years - avoid the current RCA version (which has a black cover and a sketch of Ellington). The sound is vibrant and clear - without noticeable hissing or popping.

A few good tracks..
5 Stars for Duke. Minus 4 stars for remastering (or lack of). The material is the cream of the crop Ellington, but the people who remastered this tried to get too much clarity and the end result is distortion. Definitive releases are usually a good bargain but this is a complete waste of money.
Buy the "Never No Lament" compilation. It's also has suffered the overuse of the original masters but it's the best you can get.
Where's JT Davies on this one? RCA probably would let him near these recordings 'cause then we'd have affirmation that most remastering is pretty average.
Add One star for the tracks here that are Columbia issues and they are impossible to find elsewhere(Hello Columbia...not everyone wants the Complete... And how about issuing the late 40's/Early 50's seperately?).
Also Mr JB Blues and a couple other Blanton duets are here and difficult to find elsewhere.
Dave Wilson

Great music but not always the best sound quality
Definitive, based in Andorra (I think) with discs manufactured in Spain, is one of the reissue labels which has taken advantage of the lapse of copyright to remaster and re-release older jazz (and other) music. It's one of the cheapest, but not necessarily the best. "Chronogical [sic] Classics", "Jazz Archives", "JSP", "Robert Parker's Jazz Classics", "Jazz Masters" are among the others.
Some of the 78's used for the Blanton-Webster project were not of the best quality. Remastering was not in the same league with some of the lines mentioned above. In some cases, it sounds like the engineer jerked the needle off the record before the last chord had faded. Liner notes are not so great: the essay on Duke is generic without much bearing on these sessions in particular and the 78's are not identified.
I'd recommend the 3-CD set for the actual Blanton-Webster session ('40 - '41) issued by RCA-Victor, who recorded these sessions in the first place. RCA-Victor used to take a lot of heat for the sound quality of their reissues, including these sessions, but there seems to be general agreement that recent issues are much improved. You won't get the Columbia sessions (which don't feature Jimmy Blanton anyway), but those are available on some other reissue labels and perhaps from one or another Columbia set.
The sound quality on these CD's is certainly adequate to communicate what the Ellington orchestra was doing, but better is available.
And should Definitive (or the other reissue labels) be re-issuing music that the originating label (or its descendent, in this case BMG) has continued to make available over the years?
(...)