Duke Ellington - Limehouse Blues (1931)

Another one of my favorite Ellington records from this period, Duke's mesmerizing arrangement of "Limehouse Blues" was recorded on June 16, 1931. Soloists include Harry Carney (bsx), Johnny Hodges (asx), Barney Bigard (clt), and Joe Nanton (tbn).

The record player is an Orthophonic Victrola model VE4-4X, or "Granada". The "E" in the model number indicates that the Victrola is fitted with a synchronous A/C motor instead of a wind-up motor. The machine has a full "orthophonic" playback system (for electrically-recorded records) including the special orthophonic sound box with a duralumin diaphragm and a folded exponential horn inside of the cabinet. Although the gigantic Credenza Victrola produced deeper bass, the Granada had the most accurate overall frequency response of all the acoustic Orthophonic Victrolas. The serial number indicates that this machine was probably manufactured in 1926.

I shoot my video with a Sony Digital 8 format camera. For audio, I use a Shure SM-57 microphone on a stand placed about 4 feet in front of the Victrola horn. I use "soft tone" needles to keep from overloading the microphone. The mic is plugged directly into the video camera. The videos are edited with Windows Movie Maker. I use Sound Forge 9 to clean up the audio, but don't worry -- you're hearing the record exactly as the Victrola plays it!

For more great music, videos, and trivia from this era, please visit my website, http://www.virtualvictrola.com.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Duke
• Ellington
• Big
• Band
• Jazz
• Victrola

[n64wilbert]

Love this musical Composition!!!

[fromthesidelines]

It was once said that Duke was about 10 years ahead of everybody else when he recorded numbers like this...and "they" were right! You can imagine how people must have reacted to hearing this on "Victrolas" such as this one in '31...

[ToddCMorgan]

One of my favorite Ellington records!!!

[CrisVangel]

Very hot sounding post! I can see you went to a lot of trouble, I'm lucky the mic in my Mac ain't half bad!!! LOL. Like your videos!

[ccaammiiittoo]

My first introduction to this oldie was in a dance featuring Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer. The music and dancing by Bremer and Astaire was surreal, for sure.

[mikepenny01]

Wow! Such a creative arrangement of this great piece. Thanks so much for uploading! This era of Duke yielded some of my all-time favorite music. Duke really understood the unique individual strengths and characters of his musicians when composing and arranging, and made such great use of them in his music!

[rasandmusic]

Wonderful! This makes you feel night club atmosphere of the 30's. Duke Ellington created already 1931, no doubt about it.

[bill3murr]

it sounds so good on the granada...thanks for a wonderful ellington experience...