Sax Exploits: Saving Duke Ellington

We're staging a 60th Anniversary Tribute concert to The Newport Festival at Cadogan Hall on November 18th as part of The London Jazz Festival, heavily featuring some of the finest work of jazz luminary Duke Ellington. Here's a tremendous piece from a few years back by The Guardian's jazz critic John Fordham. He succinctly sums up just what an important gig this was for The Duke, re-booting Ellington's flagging career.

Fordham: "In an electrifying performance by the band, Gonsalves – who hadn't played the piece in a while, and was initially uncertain of his way around it – played 27 improvised choruses in a raunchily R&B and gospel-inflected manner. It was an astonishing example of a musician playing way out of his skin – and one who had never been in Ellington's front rank of star soloists."

The 1956 Newport Jazz Festival appearance helped keep him and his band in clover till Duke left us in 1974. Follow the link for the full Fordham article.