Ellington Steps Up to the Keys
Duke Ellington, stripped to a trio, shows that his piano was always the heart of the orchestra.
Piano in the Foreground arrived in 1961 on Columbia, and it did not make the splash that Ellington's big band records usually did. Reception was modest at the time, and the album was never a commercial event. Its reputation grew slowly, mostly among listeners who wanted to hear Ellington as a pianist rather than as a bandleader. For a composer whose name is attached to orchestras, that quiet second life says something about how the record was received.
The music itself is simple to describe. Ellington plays in a piano trio with Aaron Bell on double bass and Sam Woodyard on drums, and he lets the keyboard carry the weight that the horns usually share. His touch is light and percussive, with a lot of rhythmic play in the left hand and sudden turns of phrase that a bigger band would have smoothed over. Nothing here is showy. It is Ellington comfortable at the instrument, swinging without fuss and letting the trio breathe.
Within his catalogue, this is a side record rather than a peak. If you want the core of Ellington, start with his orchestral work. But for listeners already familiar with his writing, this one is a pleasant look at the musician underneath the bandleader, and a good album for an evening when you want the piano up front.
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