Huston-Tillotson University Concert Choir, Choir
Jeff Hellmer, Conductor
University of Texas Jazz Orchestra, Ensemble
Nicole Taylor, narrator
Carmen Bradford, vocals
Keithon Gipson, vocals
Kelsey Pehrsson, vocals
Morgan Gale Beckford, vocals
Quinntinn Smith, vocals


Available March 30th
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Background: From a 1986 NY Times article...

MUSIC: 'QUEENIE PIE,' AN ELLINGTON PREMIERE
By ROBERT PALMER, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: September 22, 1986, Monday

Duke Ellington worked on his musical ''Queenie Pie'' up to the time of his death in 1974, but he did not finish it. And since it was announced that a completed version would have its world premiere at the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia this month, Ellington admirers have been wondering: would the team of specialists assembled to complete the work and bring it to the stage be able to put together a substantial and coherent evening from the materials at its disposal? And would it be a work worthy of Duke Ellington's name and reputation?

''Queenie Pie'' had its world premiere in Philadelphia's Zellerbach Theater tonight, and the production still had a few rough spots, which was hardly surprising. Major changes were made a few short weeks before the premiere - the choreographer Garth Fagan was made the show's sole director as well, and one of the leading roles was recast.

Before that, preparing the show for the stage required a complex collaborative effort. George C. Wolfe adapted a libretto from Ellington's original story. George David Weiss supplemented Ellington's original lyrics with some new ones necessitated by the expanded book. Maurice Peress worked at adapting and developing Ellington's music. Mercer Ellington and the Ellington Orchestra he has kept alive since his father's death whipped the stylistically diverse music into shape.

But the show emerged from these birth traumas a wonderfully vital and coherent work. In fact, it is something of a marvel. One could justifiably call it a comic opera, since the narrative is advanced primarily through song and recitative. But it has the sparkle and the memorable tunes of a superior Broadway musical, and that is surely where the show belongs - on Broadway, with its name in lights.

The musical scope of ''Queenie Pie'' is remarkable. In the first act, the title tune swings joyously over a springy brass figure that could have come right out of 60's soul music. The very next tune is a re-creation of ''Creole Love Call'' from the 1920's, with Patty Holley doing a smashing version of Adelaide Hall's wordless vocal from the 1927 recording, seconded by the Ellington orchestra's trumpeter Barrie Lee Hall playing a growling solo originated by Bubber Miley.

In the second act, rumbling polyrhythms and exotic brass voicings recall the sound of travel-inspired Ellington works from the 50's and 60's, such as the ''Far East Suite.'' But there is also ''A Blues for Two Women,'' which is steeped in Ellington's timeless indigo colors. Miss Holley and the production's Queenie Pie, Teresa Burrell, turned the latter number into an intense, sustained musical meditation that was Saturday's high point.

For all its variety, the music has a persuasive unity, it is all quintessential Ellington. And the spine of the work is Ellington's original story, which follows a Harlem beauty queen through a dramatic beauty competition and a kind of dream quest for happiness and love. It is at once a tribute to the energy and sophistication of the Harlem renaissance, a musing on mortality and a search, through action, mysticism and dreams, for values more lasting than hedonism and commerce. Yet these deeper currents never become overbearing. The show is fast-paced, the action frequently hilarious.

The cast is more than equal to the music's demands, with Larry Marshall's plummy tones recalling a bit of Billy Eckstine and both Miss Burrell and Miss Holley ranging up and down several octaves while employing a variety of bewitching timbres. The Ellington orchestra meets the music's varying challenges with aplomb. The major rough spots on Saturday were some imbalance between the orchestra and the singers, which robbed the reed instruments in particular of the sumptuous colors Ellington's music demands, and some uneven transitions amid the comings and goings on stage.

But these minor infelicities pale into insignificance beside the work itself. ''Queenie Pie'' is a superior evening's entertainment, but, more importantly, it is an evening worthy of Duke Ellington's talents. One suspects that long after the present production, which will move into the Kennedy Center in Washington on Oct. 8, ''Queenie Pie'' itself will endure.

http://theater.nytimes.co...A960948260
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Music for adventurous listeners


tA

Tribal Records
[Edited 3/16/10 14:24pm]

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Thanks for the headzup--I'm looking forward to hearing this....




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paligap said:

You're welcome, me too.

It'd be interesting to know exactly where he stopped and where the others took over.



Music for adventurous listeners


tA

Tribal Records