Duke Ellington - Masterpieces By Ellington - 2 x 200g 45rpm LPs

2017 release

"Among the first recordings arranged and produced to take advantage of the LP's longer playing time, this album was released in 1950 on Columbia Records' classical imprint, Masterworks, with a whimsical cover by Stan Fraydas (author of Hoppy, the Curious Kangaroo) that's reproduced for this edition. (Columbia soon replaced it with an image more "modern" and more mundane.)... Freed from the 78rpm single's three-minute constraint, Ellington could score and record concert-length arrangements similar to those enjoyed by his concert audiences. Three of the four selections, including 'Mood Indigo' and 'Sophisticated Lady,' are familiar Ellington classics stretched and elasticized to luxurious effect. The harmonically saturated, transparent mono sound is astonishing for any era of recording. It's sure to leave you swooning, and wondering how and why recorded sound has since gone so far south." — Michael Fremer, for Stereophile - "Records To Die For"

"...while the 33 was a startler, the new (45 RPM) version — spread out on two LPs, to accommodate the wider grooves — will leave you breathless. There's more sparkle to Ellington's piano, more wood in Wendell Marshall's bass, more breath and reed and romance in Johnny Hodges' alto sax, more force in Jimmy Hamilton's hard-blown clarinet. Each player in the horn sections sounds more distinct; I hear more of Duke's playing, underneath those sections, too. And soloists — palpable enough in 33 1/3 RPM — are holographic at 45. In short, the 45 lets us hear more of the music, more of the detail, more of the human presence; it transports us more completely back in time." — Fred Kaplan, Stereophile.com, June 17, 2017