This second of three CDs of early
Ellington released by Bluebird has the loose theme of his Cotton Club days as an excuse to release a variety of recordings from a five-year period. Highlights include the two part "A Night at the Cotton Club" (essentially a medley), some of the hotter songs from the Broadway musical Blackbirds of 1928 ("Bandanna Babies," in addition to an odd vocal, has one of trumpeter
Bubber Miley's greatest solos), some mood pieces and two lengthy medleys from 1932. Although the music deserves to be reissued as complete sessions, this sampler is consistently delightful and shows that, when it came to swing,
Ellington (along with
Fletcher Henderson) predated everyone.