The Clark Terry Five – Memories Of Duke

A memory built through playing

Clark Terry knew Duke Ellington’s music from inside the orchestra. He worked with Ellington from 1951 to 1959, following his time with Count Basie. When he recorded Memories of Duke in 1980, he returned to repertoire connected with his own working life. That experience gives the album a particularly useful context without requiring you to know every earlier version of its songs.

Norman Granz produced the Los Angeles session on 11 March 1980. Terry plays trumpet and flugelhorn with Jack Wilson on piano, Joe Pass on guitar, Ray Brown on bass and Frank Severino on drums. This small group has a different set of possibilities from an orchestra: the melody and its accompaniment can pass through fewer, more individually identifiable voices.

More than one Ellington writer

The title points to Duke, but the programme also acknowledges his close musical circle. The opening “Passion Flower” is Billy Strayhorn’s composition. “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be” was written by Mercer Ellington, Duke’s son. Those credits help reveal the wider network of writers behind music commonly gathered under the Ellington name.

“Echoes of Harlem”, “Sophisticated Lady”, “Cotton Tail” and “Come Sunday” provide further ways into the selection. A familiar tune can become the starting point for following a particular phrase or the relationship between soloist and accompaniment. Recognition gives you something to compare against; it does not settle what this group will do with the material.

Listen for the flugelhorn

The publisher specifically identifies Terry’s switch to flugelhorn on “Everything But You”. It is a useful detail to carry into a listening session. Wilson, Pass and Brown remain important alongside the featured horn, with piano, guitar and bass offering different ways to support or answer a melodic statement.

Try one familiar selection twice, first following Terry and then attending to the accompaniment. Where is space left around a phrase, and where does another instrument continue the thought? The quintet invites that kind of close attention to songs often associated with orchestral arrangements. “Happy Go Lucky Local” and “Come Sunday” also connect with the Pablo release A Celebration of Duke, placing this album within a broader recorded remembrance.

The Pablo reissue

Analogue Productions AAPJ 195 is a single 180-gram LP playing at 33⅓ RPM, pressed at Quality Record Pressings. Matthew Lutthans handled the mastering at The Mastering Lab. The publisher identifies the original analogue master tape as the source. The edition contains the nine selections from Terry’s 1980 quintet recording.

Michael 45 stores the goods in Germany and dispatches from Hilden, allowing customers in Germany and the EU to order without arranging a private US import or facing the customs wait.

Customer question: Buying Analogue Productions records in Europe

Series: Pablo – all 30 records, musicians and the session book

Musicians

Documented selection of participating musicians. Personnel may vary by track; this list does not claim to be complete.