Anatomy Of A Murder From the Soundtrack of the Motion Picture (Remastered) Duke Ellington

• 1 Main Title and Anatomy of a Murder 03:56
• 2 Flirtibird 02:11
• 3 Way Early Subtone 03:56
• 4 Hero to Zero 02:10
• 5 Low Key Lightly 03:36
• 6 Happy Anatomy 02:32
• 7 Midnight Indigo 02:42
• 8 Almost Cried 02:24
• 9 Sunswept Sunday 01:51
• 10 Grace Valse 02:30
• 11 Happy Anatomy (P.I. Five) 01:27
• 12 Haupe 02:36
• 13 Upper and Outest 02:18
• Total Runtime 34:09

Info for Anatomy Of A Murder From the Soundtrack of the Motion Picture (Remastered)

The 1959 courtroom crime drama "Anatomy of a Murder" was directed by Otto Preminger and adapted by Wendell Mayes from the best-selling homonymous novel written by Michigan Supreme Court Justice John D. Voelker under the pen name Robert Traver.

The film stars James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, Eve Arden, and George C. Scott. "Anatomy of a Murder" was one of the first mainstream Hollywood films to address sex and rape in graphic terms. It includes one of Saul Bass’s most celebrated title sequences, and a musical score, presented here in its entirety,composed and performed by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. Ellington himself plays a character in the film, called Pie-Eye.

In 2012, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. Duke Ellington’s score won three Grammy Awards in 1959, for Best Performance by a Dance Band, Best Musical Composition First Recorded and Released in 1959 and Best Sound Track Album.

"Rarely has such sumptuous jazz been married to a film soundtrack. Written in 1959 for director Otto Preminger's courtroom drama of sex and jealousy, the burnished glow of Ellington's score is undeniably erotic - indeed, the powerfully charged, slow burn of the second track here, "Flirtibird," is among Ellington's most sensual recordings.

Classic film scores build on recurring motifs that identify characters and situations, amplifying their existence for the viewer through the sense of hearing. The "flirty bird" of the title - Lee Remick's Laura Manion - is evoked early on by a six-note phrase, with emotional hues that undergo dramatic changes every time it reappears along the score's course. "Way Early Subtone" expands on that phrase in a passionate, extended coda that tries to rekindle the flame; by the time of "Almost Cried," the melody has taken on a deep, hard-edged sadness.

The Ellington orchestra sounded exquisite in the early summer sessions that produced this soundtrack. With a burnished sonic brilliance reminiscent of the glorious 1940 "Blanton/Webster" edition of the band, and soloists like Johnny Hodges and Paul Gonsalves (whose masterful tenor saxophone solo on "Hero To Zero" is surrounded by some truly adventurous harmonies), Ellington's tightly woven soundtrack took on a life independent of its original context. In doing so, it became one of Duke's most satisfying albums." (Larry Nai, JAZZIZ Magazine)

"This was Duke Ellington's first film score, undertaken at the urging of Anatomy of a Murder's director, Otto Preminger. The full range of the composer's previous work was brought to bear on this 1959 work. Ellington was a natural choice to convey the rich and varied emotional moods of this drama. Tension and release, danger and safety, movement and stillness, darkness and light; the textural palette that was Ellington's signature was always compellingly cinematic. In these orchestral settings, Duke's soloists (Cat Anderson, Clark Terry, Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney, and others) shine, as their playing reflects true variations on a theme in a classical sense. That's not to say that this set doesn't swing, too -- "Happy Anatomy" is a short but fully cranked gallop. This is an album of rich variety and evocative writing." (AMG)

Duke Ellington & His Orchestra:
Clark Terry, trumpet
Cat Anderson, trumpet
Harold “Shorty” Baker, trumpet
Ray Nance, trumpet, clarinet
Quentin Jackson, trombone
Britt Woodman, trombone
John Sanders, trombone
Jimmy Hamilton, clarinet, tenor saxophone
Russell Procope, alto saxophone, clarinet
Johnny Hodges, alt and soprano saxophone
Paul Gonsalves, tenor saxophone
Harry Carney, baritone and bass clarinet, clarinet
Duke Ellington, piano
Billy Strayhorn, piano, celeste
Jimmy Woode, double bass
Jimmy Johnson, drums

Digitally remastered

Duke Ellington
called his music 'American Music' rather than jazz, and liked to describe those who impressed him as 'beyond category. He remains one of the most influential figures in jazz, if not in all American music and is widely considered as one of the twentieth century's best known African American personalities. As both a composer and a band leader, Ellington's reputation has increased since his death, with thematic repackaging of his signature music often becoming best-sellers. Posthumous recognition of his work include a special award citation from the Pulitzer Prize Board.

Duke Ellington influenced millions of people both around the world and at home. He gave American music its own sound for the first time. In his fifty year career, he played over 20,000 performances in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East as well as Asia.

Simply put, Ellington transcends boundaries and fills the world with a treasure trove of music that renews itself through every generation of fans and music-lovers. His legacy continues to live onand will endure for generations to come. Winton Marsalis said it best when he said 'His music sounds like America.' Because of the unmatched artistic heights to which he soared, no one deserved the phrase “beyond category” more than Ellington, for it aptly describes his life as well. He was most certainly one of a kind that maintained a lifestyle with universal appeal which transcended countless boundaries.

Duke Ellington is best remembered for the over 3000 songs that he composed during his lifetime. His best known titles include; 'It Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing', 'Sophisticated Lady', 'Mood Indigo', “Solitude', 'In a Mellotone', and 'Satin Doll'. The most amazing part about Ellington was the most creative while he was on the road. It was during this time when he wrote his most famous piece, 'Mood Indigo'which brought him world wide fame.

Duke Ellington's popular compositions set the bar for generations of brilliant jazz, pop, theatre and soundtrack composers to come. While these compositions guarantee his greatness, what makes Duke an iconoclastic genius, and an unparalleled visionary, what has granted him immortality are his extended suites. From 1943's Black, Brown and Beige to 1972's The Uwis Suite, Duke used the suite format to give his jazz songs a far more empowering meaning, resonance and purpose: to exalt, mythologize and re-contextualize the African-American experience on a grand scale.

Duke Ellington was partial to giving brief verbal accounts of the moods his songs captured. Reading those accounts is like looking deep into the background of an old photo of New York and noticing the lost and almost unaccountable details that gave the city its character during Ellington's heyday, which began in 1927 when his band made the Cotton Club its home. ''The memory of things gone,'' Ellington once said, ''is important to a jazz musician,'' and the stories he sometimes told about his songs are the record of those things gone. But what is gone returns, its pulse kicking, when Ellington's music plays, and never mind what past it is, for the music itself still carries us forward today.

Duke Ellington was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1966. He was later awarded several other prizes, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969, and the Legion of Honor by France in 1973, the highest civilian honors in each country. He died of lung cancer and pneumonia on May 24, 1974, a month after his 75th birthday, and is buried in the Bronx, in New York City. At his funeral attended by over 12,000 people at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Ella Fitzgerald summed up the occasion, 'It's a very sad day...A genius has passed.'

This album contains no booklet.