The Duke Book: The Music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn (CD Special)

Angelo Verploegen dazzled NativeDSD listeners last year with his Jazz trio and their Just Listen release The Sweetest Sound. With The Duke Book, he teams with drummer Jasper van Hulten to perform standards from the Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn catalogs.

Rather than the familiar full ensemble or full orchestra performance of these tracks, this is simply the horn player and the drummer. It is a memorable journey and these two fine Jazz musicians put their own stamp on some very familiar and popular compositions.

And now we have The Duke Book.  Be sure to have a look at the rave reviews of this album in the Reviews Tab – and then pick up a copy in DSD Stereo and DSD Multichannel (or both)!

This is a Pure DSD 256 Stereo & 5 Channel recording from Just Listen.  No equalization, mixing, compression or editing is used on this album. All DSD bit rates were created in the DSD Domain using Signalyst HQ Player 4 Pro mastering tools.

“The Duke Book is about melody and rhythm, about sound and time, about exploring the music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn in all kinds of ways alongside exploring the sonorities of our instruments. Playing in numerous drum-less bands for some time now, I felt more and more the urge to investigate the possibilities of combining melody with only rhythm. And what better repertoire to do this with than Duke Ellington’s?

Ellington set the standard for melody, form, rhythm in the jazz idiom. So, when I was given the opportunity by label co-founder Jonas Sacks to make a new recording for Just Listen, I grabbed it with both hands and invited Jasper van Hulten to join me on this musical journey. Somehow Jasper’s musical intuition and incredible sensitivity fit my playing like a glove. His open mind, inventiveness and great dynamics make him a perfect match for this adventure.

This is the second collaboration with the outstanding Just Listen crew. My first encounter with their pure DSD recording was with my musical soulmates guitarist Ed Verhoeff and bassist Eric van der Westen doing the award-winning album The Sweetest Sound (JL009 Album Page). No sound-equalizing, no mixing, no compressing, no editing applied here. Just the musicians in a beautiful medium-large concert hall, the best possible technical equipment and a great set of ears of producer and recording engineer Jared Sacks.”

Producer’s Note from Jared Sacks

“Flugelhorn and Drums…. A whole album? Both of you will have to be very good to keep the listener’s attention for the duration of a complete album. And yes, it is all very good. These boys needed no producing on my part. Setting up the microphones was also easy. A great space to play, two very musical minded players. I only needed to press record!”

Angelo Verploegen – Flugelhorn
Jasper Van Hulten – Drums