From the Record Shelves #131

Your Love Has Faded

LP TAX m-8012

To some extent Ivie Anderson could compete with Billie Holiday as a singer of sad songs. Especially around 1940. I love her warm voice and sensitive singing on tunes like this.

It’s quite remarkable that Duke Ellington managed to keep his orchestra together through the 1930s until their artistic peak in the beginning of the next decade.

And it is almost the same band as before the depression. Two men in the trumpet section, and the bass player have been replaced, otherwise it’s the same band. Of course, it followed the time and adapted to the swing era with a change from banjo to guitar, more riff based arrangements and a rhythmic conformity in the section work among other things.

But their soloists Barney Bigard on clarinet, Cootie Williams on muted “growl” trumpet, Harry Carney on baritone sax, Johnny Hodges on alto and Tricky Sam Nanton on trombone still could do their thing which guaranteed the personality of this great orchestra. But a novelty was Billy Strayhorn who did the arrangement.

A great orchestra!

«