Search - Rex Stewart :: Rex Stewart & The Ellingtonians

Three different bands appear on this CD, linked (and blessed) by their relationship to Duke Ellington. The first four pieces are by Rex Stewart's Big Seven, a 1940 group that features Stewart's cornet in a front line with the suavely mellifluous trombone of Lawrence Brown and the warmly woody tones of Barney Bigard's clarinet, all kept moving by the great Chicago drummer Dave Tough. Four quartet tracks from a later session feature Stewart with rhythm accompaniment, and they give a more developed introduction to the cornetist's many "talking" effects, as he uses half-valves and mutes to give his horn a human dimension. Two tracks feature an octet led by Jimmy Jones, a pianist and arranger with a fascination for the Duke's music, whose band here has an Ellingtonian cast to both its personnel and style. --Stuart Broomer