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On this week's episode of Blank Check @jamellebouie.net mentioned that he's been listening to a ton of Duke Ellington, so that's been my music the past few days. I already knew and loved Ellington but tend to favor Mingus and hard bop or cool jazz. But Ellington? Fucking rules.

At least until I read Gary Giddins essay "The Long-Playing Duke," which spurred me to explore the remaining quarter century (!) of his recorded legacy. www.villagevoice.com/the-long-pla... (It's also collected in Giddins's book Natural Selection)

I think what stopped me before was ELLINGTON AT NEWPORT '56--often touted as his greatest album--which I liked but didn't love (perhaps because I listened to the complete version instead of the original edited release). Now, thanks in part to Giddins, I'd rank a dozen Duke LPs higher than NEWPORT