When the talents add up

The success of Back To Back led Norman Granz to repeat the experience with a new album bringing together the two accomplices Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges. The two friends are placed equally on the wallet but listening to this album reveals he 'is an album of Johnny Hodges. The Duke is only present on the pieces 1, 2 and 4 with the same accomplices in Back To Back, pieces he composed or which he is the co-author. They were engraved February 20, 1959, the same day as Back To Back. In other headlines, Johnny Hodges is accompanied by Roy Eldridge on trumpet, trombone Lawrence Brown, Ben Webster on tenor saxophone, arranger and composer Billy Strayhorn on piano, Wendell Marshall on bass and Jo Jones on drums. They were engraved August 14, 1958.
And difference means: the pieces interpreted by the rhythmic Ellington are on "more measured tempi" s (what beautiful solos Span in "Stompy Jones" wonderfully supported by the bass and drums, Hodges and Edison), those with the rhythm led by Hodges' most frenzied "(what virtuosity solos of Billy Strayhorn on piano, what beauty in the solos and duets Hodges and Webster) with the exception of the sublime and melancholic ballad" Let's Fall In Love ".

This album is apparently one of the reissued by Verve: hear it once and you'll understand why.