I. Dr. John (a.k.a. Mac Rebennack) may have been a couple of months late in releasing this Duke Ellington centennial tribute, but his execution of these legendary numbers is still a delight. Rather than handling each classic as if it were a delicate museum piece to be treated with kid gloves, Rebennack instead infuses them with his signature style, which leansmore toward New Orleans R&B.
Songs such as "I'm Gonna GoFishin" and "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" are given light funk workouts dominated by chugging grooves and popping bass. The album constantly shifts gears, as Dr. John turns "Satin Doll" into a Latin shuffle, hops on the organ to inject some Jimmy Smith-flavoured phrasing into"Perdido", and transforms "Things Ain't What They Used to Be" into a Meters-like workout. Dr. John's brightest moments come on "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" and "Flaming Sword".Rebennack transforms the former from wistful ballad into anupbeat declaration of freedom while on the latter, his piano breezily dances along the top of a syncopated rhythm in a manner reminiscent of his late friend James Booker. So in a nutshell the Duke gets pure fonk-i-fied by the good Dr.
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II. Mac Dr John Rebennack playing songs from the canon of Duke Ellington is as natural as the break of day. But the gris-gris king interprets Ellington in a way unlike anyone else. "Mood Indigo", arranged for Dr. John's six-man New Orleans group, takes on a fresh, heartfelt immediacy with the good doctor's vocals and piano locked into a relaxed groove. He sings another slice of essential Ellingtonia, "Do Nothing 'Til You Hear from Me", with a lighthearted nonchalance that epitomises the worthiest New Orleans performers. Dr. John packages snippets of his keyboard playing as panaceas for the soul on a funked-up interpretation of "Caravan", even spinning off on a "Wade in the Water" tangent before wrapping up the song. But with so many Duke Ellington nuggets to dust off for reinterpretation, one wonders why Dr. John elected to go with popular numbers that get covered again and again. To his credit, he does serve up the lesser-known "Flaming Sword", where his piano is luminous in the Calypso fashion of Professor Longhair, and he offers delightful, funkified updates of the Ellington obscurities "On The Wrong Side of the Railroad Tracks" and "I'm Gonna Go Fishin'".
© Frank-John Hadley (amazon.com)