Duke Ellington - An Intimate Piano Session

The Guardian 100

(Storyville)

Unearthed from Duke’s legendary stockpile of private recordings, this dates from 1972 – just him and a grand piano, occasionally joined by Anita Moore and Tony Watkins, his vocalists at the time. Duke may not have been a virtuoso pianist (at one point he’s heard to murmur, “This piano’s too honest; it shows all my flaws!”), but he had the composer’s gift of conjuring a mood with a simple phrase, or surprising you with a sudden shift in the harmony. And he was a wonderful accompanist. All this is gloriously on display here, as he dips into the vast repertoire of his work, from a then-new piece, The Anticipation, back to 1943 and New World A-Comin’.