Monday, April 29, 2013

Duke Ellington: Jazz Entre Amigos (1985)


Continuing with our Duke Ellington's 114th birthday celebration, here you can watch probably the most ambitious TV programme ever made about Ellington. Interestingly, this unmissable compilation of many great films of Duke is coming from Spain. (But the Spanish voice-over is not too loquacious to lessen the viewing pleasure, except when they dub Duke!)

This two-part portrait of Duke during six decades of non-stop genuine creativity is from Jazz Entre Amigos, a weekly TV programme on Spanish national television, presented by Juan Claudio Cifuentes (known to his friends as Cifu) which ran between 1984 to 1991. The Ellington entry is particularly ambitious because it's 130-minute long, and features many well-known clips (Black & Tan and other Hollywood appearances), as well as more rare and hard to find footage and backstage films from the 1960s.

Enjoy the last hours of  this 114th birth day with the images of his highness in action:

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