Very few people could pull something like this off. A tribute album, but not in the traditional sense of the word, this serves as a musical tip of the hat to the jazz great Duke Ellington. The Duke <\/i>reworks 15 Ellington classics in 10 tracks, and does so in an unorthodox fashion by piecing together a kaleidoscope of sounds and textures. If anyone could manage an undertaking like this, it’s Joe Jackson. In his 30-plus-year career, the English legend has penned records in nearly every genre of music and possesses a level of creativity that seemingly has no bounds. <\/p>\n
Taking aid from more guest instrumentalists and singers than I could keep up with, Jackson brings in notable names such as Iggy Pop, who Jackson takes turns on the mic with on \u201cIt Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),\u201d and Sharon Jones, who lends her pipes on the soulful \u201cI Ain’t Got Nothin’ But The Blues – Do Nothin’ Till.\u201d And of course you can’t fail to mention Steve Vai, who contributes guitar work on a disc where guitars often take a back seat to percussion and keyboards. <\/p>\n
To say that is an eclectic listen would be doing The Duke <\/i>a disservice. To say that each track sounds like a different period, band or emanating from a different part of the world would be more accurate. Sure, Jackson’s inimitable voice keeps a few of tracks resembling one another, but with nearly a third of the album being instrumentals that range from gentle blues guitar work to rapid piano melodies, and the remainder taking stabs at ’50s rock’n’roll, R&B balladry, and synth-based funk, it often sounds like a ‘Best Of’ disc that spans Jackson’s career. <\/p>\n
One doesn’t necessarily need to be an Ellington fan to enjoy this. Hell, if you only know Jackson from his power-pop days that made him a celebrity, you could find intrigue here. While the idea of an Ellington tribute sans horns would be a disaster for most, Jackson’s curious and creative interpretations make for a very atypical listen from an iconoclastic songwriter. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":31085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6542],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-42770","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-joe-jackson","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42770"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}