1950 · Album
Great Times!
Recorded 1950 · Mercer Records (original); Riverside Records (reissue, 1984) · Format: Piano duets; later edition includes Oscar Pettiford session
Two Pianists in Conversation, 1950
Ellington and Strayhorn at the keyboard together—intimate, unhurried, genuinely listening to each other.
This album occupies an unusual corner of Duke Ellington's catalog: it's neither a breakthrough nor a peak, but something quieter and more personal. By 1950, Ellington was already a towering figure in jazz, secure in his methods and his fame. These duet sessions with Billy Strayhorn—his arranger and closest musical collaborator—weren't made to prove anything. They're simply two pianists working out ideas together at leisure, without the machinery of a big band around them.
What makes Great Times! worth hearing is exactly that intimacy. Strayhorn and Ellington move through these pieces with real conversational ease, trading phrases, supporting each other, occasionally stepping back to let the other lead. The format strips away everything but the two instruments and their chemistry. AllMusic reviewer Scott Yanow found the results "quite fascinating" and "most memorable," and he's right—there's something intriguing about watching two first-rate minds approach the same harmonic territory from different angles.
This isn't an essential starting point for either artist. If you're new to Ellington, begin with his orchestra records; if you're discovering Strayhorn, look at his own leadership albums first. But if you already know both men's work and you want to hear them without pretense, trading solos and ideas in real time, Great Times! rewards the attention. It's a document of friendship and mutual respect, nothing more grandiose than that.
Who's playing
Where next?
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
