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Three Suites album cover

Album guide

Three Suites

Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn

Composers
Tchaikovsky; Grieg
Released
1990
Label
Columbia
Forces
Big band
Personnel
Duke Ellington Orchestra; arrangements by Ellington and Strayhorn

Three Suites brings together Ellington and Strayhorn’s 1960 versions of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker and Grieg’s Peer Gynt with Suite Thursday, inspired by John Steinbeck’s Sweet Thursday.

The Grieg Foundation saw the jazz treatment as an offensive attack on Grieg’s musical reputation and pressed for a ban on record sales, broadcasts and public concerts across Scandinavia. Swedish Radio defied the ban in 1966 and Sweden lifted it soon afterwards; Norway held out until Grieg’s copyright expired in 1969.

Hear both

The classical side contains only the source pieces used on the album, in album order. The jazz side presents the complete album whenever a dependable copy can be embedded.

The originalsTchaikovsky and Grieg · classical source works

The classical player follows Ellington and Strayhorn’s reordered Nutcracker sequence movement by movement, including the Overture reprise, before the five Peer Gynt movements.

Jazzed upDuke Ellington Orchestra · 1990 edition
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Source works

The album’s complete track listing, with each classical source identified and original compositions marked plainly.

  1. OvertureTchaikovsky: The Nutcracker, Miniature Overture
  2. Toot Toot Tootie Toot (Dance of the Reed-Pipes)Tchaikovsky: Dance of the Reed Pipes
  3. Peanut Brittle Brigade (March)Tchaikovsky: March
  4. Sugar Rum Cherry (Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy)Tchaikovsky: Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy
  5. Entr’acteTchaikovsky: Miniature Overture, recast as a freer reprise
  6. The Volga Vouty (Russian Dance)Tchaikovsky: Russian Dance (Trepak)
  7. Chinoiserie (Chinese Dance)Tchaikovsky: Chinese Dance
  8. Danse of the Floreadores (Waltz of the Flowers)Tchaikovsky: Waltz of the Flowers
  9. Arabesque Cookie (Arabian Dance)Tchaikovsky: Arabian Dance
  10. Morning MoodGrieg: Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, I. Morning Mood
  11. In the Hall of the Mountain KingGrieg: Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, IV
  12. Solveig’s SongGrieg: Peer Gynt Suite No. 2, IV
  13. Åse’s DeathGrieg: Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, II
  14. Anitra’s DanceGrieg: Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, III
  15. Misfit BluesOriginal composition from Suite Thursday
  16. SchwiphtiOriginal composition from Suite Thursday
  17. Zweet ZurzdayOriginal composition from Suite Thursday
  18. Lay-ByOriginal composition from Suite Thursday