Memories of Duke

Rating:
Summary: So That's How Duke Did It
Review: Between September 23 and 29, 1968 Duke Ellington and his Orchestra toured Mexico. Gary Keys filmed Ellington in concert all through that week. This filming resulted in two films. "The Mexican Suite," and then, this film "Memories of the Duke." The two films overlap, but are not the same, as some songs which appear in the first film do not appear in the second film, and vice-a-versa. Nielsen in his "Jazz Records 1942-1980 Volume Six: Duke Ellington" says that some of the songs were recorded in Tequestquitengo on September 24, 1968. What we probably have here is the sound track and the basic shots filmed on September 24, and other shots filmed on the other days.

One of the most interesting features is that we get two versions of "Mood Indigo." The first was one of the Snader Transcriptions recorded on March 14 1952, at Balboa Beach, and the second recorded in Mexico. You get to compare the Ellington sound 16 years apart. Ken Burns did pretty much the same thing in his film "Jazz."

Gary Giddins once asked Mercer Ellington if he knew how his father was able to get the train whistle sound in "Daybreak Express." Mercer said he didn't know, and in fact when he performed that song, a train whistle was used. You see unless you're there and see how it's done you don't know for sure how Duke did it. You just have to imagine. But seeing this wonderful film you can say "so that's how the Duke did it."

A word on the title. The box calls the film "Memories of Duke" but the film titles have "Memories of the Duke." I am using that title here in my review.

Rating:
Summary: great man. great music. so so documentary
Review: duke ellington is of course brilliant. i was excited to buy this dvd seeing how it contains lots of live footage. it would be a great film except for a couple things. 1) it was shot in 68 so the film is dark and blurry. 2) also, since being done in 68, at times the sound is not synced up too well with what you're seeing 3) again with the film/music sync. i got irritated when it was obvious what you are seeing is not what's going on, sometimes evidently not even the same song! Duke miraculously changes suits sometimes 3-4 times during a song! and during a solo in Happy-Go-Lucky-Local by Paul Gonsalves, there is a quick shot where the bass player isn't even playing! what? we're these guys blind putting this stuff together? there are almost constant edits with different shots, again going along with the trend at the time=lots of "too close" close-ups and quick editing. most of this really bugged me and i haven't finished watching it yet, sad to say. i love ellingtons music and wish i could have seen him perform. while all intentions were good and it is wonderful to see things like this on dvd, there has to be better, uncut footage out there. someone get on that please! P.S. the two stars i didn't give that would have made it a complete five was just because of this. has nothing to do with the music or perfomances AT ALL.