Duke Ellington - New Orleans Suite

Duke Ellington — New Orleans Suite

Available for the first time in nearly 50 years!

Transferred from the original half-inch four-channel master recordings

Blu-ray with 192/94 resolution quadraphonic and hi-res stereo mixes

Quadraphonic sound, or 4.0 surround sound, utilizes four audio channels connected to four speakers positioned at the corners of a listening space. The multi-tracked audio is mixed dimensional, immersing the listener in an expansive soundscape.

Duke Ellington was commissioned to create the New Orleans Suite for the 1970 New Orleans Jazz Festival, marking his final recording with saxophonist Johnny Hodges. The record is regarded as one of Ellington's greatest works, incorporating Creole influences. He won the 1970 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance by a Big Band and received a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition.

 

0. Blues for New Orleans

1. Bourbon Street Jingling Jollies

2. Portrait of Louis Armstrong

3. Thanks for the Beautiful Land on the Delta

4. Portrait of Wellman Braud

5. Second Line

6. Portrait of Sidney Bechet

7. Aristocracy à la Jean LaFitte

8. Portrait of Mahalia Jackson

Customer Reviews (4.00 Stars) 1 person(s) rated this product.

great piece of history, nice remaster posted on 09/07/2025 4 Stars Reviewer: Thomas Spitzer Historic album in a number of ways. I've had it on vinyl for about fifty years, bought it used for $7 long ago, and it was in fair shape. So it was nice to get a version that you can hear. The performances are mixed. As it says on the cover, Johnny Hodges died unexpectedly during the recording process, and he was one of the stars of this iteration of the band. There's a somber tone throughout, though the theme is a celebration of New Orleans in the history of great American music. Russell Procope presents himself admirably on a number of the tracks, Norris Turney did some nice flute work, and Harry Carney got a feature or two on baritone. About the recording, you can play this in four channel and two channel. My recommendation is to listen to the two channel mix. The four channel sends a lot of sound to the surround speakers, which does not sound natural to me. My surround processor created a better ambient mix with the two channel input as source.

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