Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington: 65 Years of “The Great Summit”

65 years ago today, Louis Armstrong and His All Stars stepped into RCA Victor’s Studio A in New York City to begin recording a new album. One member of the All Stars was conspicuously absent; pianist Billy Kyle, who would be replaced for the occasion by none other than Duke Ellington. Over the course of two sessions, Armstrong, Ellington, and the All Stars would record 17 songs, enough material for two albums, both of which were combined during the CD era and repackaged as The Great Summit.

For once, this was truth in advertising as the combination of Armstrong and Ellington truly represented a summit meeting of jazz royalty. It’s kind of crazy that it didn’t happen earlier, but not for lack of trying. In 1956, George Avakian had both Armstrong and Ellington under contract at Columbia Records. His dream was to team Armstrong with Ellington’s orchestra, featuring Armstrong playing over arrangements by Duke and Billy Strayhorn of not only Ellington compositions, but also items from Arsmtrong’s past like “West End Blues” and “Tight Like This.” Considering the prime shape Armstrong and Ellington were in in 1956, plus the care Avakian put into his productions, it would have been an album for the ages.

Unfortunately for Avakian, he had been a little too successful with his Armstrong projects, resulting in manager Joe Glaser making Armstrong a free agent, only allowing him to record for labels that could meet his steep price. Columbia would not pay the exhorbitant fee and the Armstrong-Ellington project was dead. Avakian was distraught, but the artists took it in stride, with Ellington kidding him that the only gangsters he knew about where the ones in the movies and that Glaser was the real thing.

Flash forward five years to 1961. Armstrong and Ellington had just spent the month of December 1960 together in Paris, filming and recording the soundtrack to Paris Blues. Producer Bob Thiele heard about this collaboration and dreamed of making an album with the two titans. He soon brought the idea to Morris Levy (speaking of gangsters) of Roulette Records, who contacted Glaser. They shook hands on the idea, and a deal was made to record an album in April 1961.

Glaser was booking both Armstrong and Ellington at the time and kept both of them so busy, they were rarely in the same city at the same time. But after a grueling State Department-sponsored tour of Africa, Armstrong returned home to Corona, Queens in early March 1961 and was gifted the luxary of a full month off. At the end of the month, Glaser tacked on exactly two days for Armstrong to record with Ellington, April 3 and 4.

However, this would not be the carefully planned production Avakian envisioned. Instead of having Armstrong front Ellington’s orchestra, it was decided that Ellington would simply play piano with the All Stars. There wouldn’t be much time to prepare anything; it seems that most of the songs were agreed upon in the studio. Armstrong had been mostly off his horn for a month and showed up with a cold, but there’d be no time to reschedule. Backed by ex-Ellingtonian Barney Bigard on clarinet, trombonist Trummy Young, bassist Mort Herbert, and drummer Danny Barcelona, Armstrong and Ellington began mowing down one song after another, beginning at 6 p.m. and finishing ten songs later at 1:30 a.m. They would return at 2 p.m. the following afternoon to record seven more. Here’s how the sessions broke down:

April 3, 1961
It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)
Solitude
In a Mellow Tone
I’m Beginning to See the Light
Do Nothin’ Till You Hear from Me
Don’t Get Around Much Anymore
Duke’s Place
I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good)
Just Squeeze Me (But Don’t Tease Me)
The Beautiful American

April 4, 1961
Drop Me Off in Harlem
Mood Indigo
I’m Just a Lucky So and So
Azalea
Black and Tan Fantasy
The Mooche
Cotton Tail

Ellington didn’t bring much to the date in the way of sheet music (“The Beautiful American” was created right there in the studio), but he and Armstrong must have discussed some of the tunes that would be recorded because Armstrong brought some handwritten lyric sheets to the date to help him get through “Duke’s Place,” “I’m Just a Lucky So and So,” “Cotton Tail,” “Mood Indigo,” “Do Nothin’ Til You Hear from Me,” and “Drop Me Off in Harlem.” Thanks to the late Jack Bradley, here are those handwritten lyric sheets!

Armstrong apparently started to type up the lyrics to “Duke’s Place” (penned by producer Bob Thiele), but he must have had an issue with his typewriter (with italicized ribbon!) and just started handwriting them:

Bradley might have kept the lyric sheets, but he didn’t take any photos. Perhaps that was because of the bizarrely secretive nature of the sessions. Even the May 25, 1961 Down Beat “Strictly Ad Lib” column reported, “Three different persons called to say, ‘Don’t tell them who told you, but…’ They were talking about the most carelessly kept musical secret in recent times. No one connected with it will admit that it happened, but the Louis Armstrong All-Stars have recorded for Roulette, playing a program of music by Duke Ellington–with Duke playing piano, substituting for Billy Kyle.”

Still, some photos did leak out, including this beauty of the two principals; an alternate take ended up on the cover of the first issued LP:

That’s the only photo in our Archives of Armstrong and Ellington together at one of the sessions, but the Jazz Journal archives did post this one online in 2025:

We also have three photos of Armstrong without Ellington taken at the above date, wearing that shirt; here’s one saved by Jack Bradley:

And these next two photos were saved by Louis himself; neither is one to hang over the mantle, but they’re still worth sharing:

I’m not sure who the fellow is kneeling down but he’s clearly holding sheet music; music stands can be glimpsed in other photos so the musicians did have something to work from, even if they weren’t full-blown Ellington arrangements.

One song Ellington famously sprung on Armstrong was “Azalea.” Dan Morgenstern was at the second session and never forgot how it went down; here’s how Dan told it to Italian filmmaker Michele Cinque in 2012:

Morgenstern also wrote about the session in the June 1961 issue of Metronome: “The easy, warm rapport between these two great artists, their understanding of each other’s needs and purposes, their mixing of high seriousness and frivolous banter, were a unique personification of jazz, at its warmest and tightest. It was a joy to be there, and a wonder to reflect on and bask in the youthful presence and spirit of these two men in their seventh decade of life, still finding challenges and discovering joy in their work.”

Barney Bigard agreed. “One thing I enjoyed during this last period that I played with Louis was a special recording that someone had organized for Duke Ellington to play with Louis’ band,” he wrote in his book With Louis and the Duke. “It was fun for me to be recording with thte two most important bandleaders in my career at one session. To tell the truth, I think Billy Kyle fitted in Louis’ sound better than Duke did, but for that date it turned out OK. Duke and I reminisced a while before we started, but the main thing was that Louis got along so great with Duke. I mean two prominent leaders on one date could have been rough, but we had no problems.”

Armstrong and Ellington went their separate ways after the second session and Bob Thiele went to work with the 17 selections in the can. Thiele chose ten and released Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington Recording Together for the First Time in September 1961. Here’s the cover:

And here are the excellent liner notes by Stanley Dance, which provide some real nice fly-on-the-wall descriptions of the atmosphere at the sessions:

When the album came out in September 1961, the All Stars were performing at Freedomland in the Bronx. Jack Bradley brought a copy backstage and snapped a photo of Trummy Young and Billy Kyle checking it out:

The album received a slew of good reviews, including a 4 1/2 star notice in Down Beat by Don DeMichael, who wrote, “We have a&r man Bob Thiele and Roulette to thank for what is the most inspired Armstrong record performance since the W. C. Handy session for Columbia a few years ago. Most of the credit for quality of the date, however, must go to Ellington, whose presence evidently brought out the creative powers that Armstrong still possesses but doesn’t display often enough these days.” Even Armstrong’s critical nemesis John S. Wilson wrote in High Fidelity, “Armstrong’s trumpet once more crackles with the lean, raw strength that has been washed out of so many of his routine, latter-day recordings.” “It is seldom that everybody praises a record so enthusiastically as has happened with this Louis Armstrong-Duke Ellington release,” is how Cash Box summed it up. (Well, not everybody. Leonard Feather complained in his year-in-review column, “In terms of unfulfilled expectations, one need go no further than the recent Roulette LP that brought together Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington in the most abortive summit meeting since Khrushchev’s with Eisenhower.”)

On December 17, 1961, Armstrong and Ellington appeared together on The Ed Sullivan Show to promote their new album. Armstrong’s All Stars had gone through some personnel changes since April; Joe Darensbourg replaced Barney Bigard on clarinet and Billy Cronk was now on bass. These performances were whispered about for decades until the Ed Sullivan YouTube channel finally put them up online in 2022. Here’s “Duke’s Place”:

And here’s “In a Mellotone” in a version that I personally think tops the one of the album (nearly 1 million views on YouTube–hope for humanity!):

Recording Together for the First Time was a hit, but what of the other seven performances recorded in April 1961? Thiele sat on them for two full years before eventually releasing the sequel, titled The Great Reunion, in October 1963. Without putting the recording dates or personnel info on the LP sleeve, Thiele could get away with convincing some listeners that Armstrong and Ellington actually reunited to record this sequel, instead of letting listeners know that these were seven leftover performances from the first date. Here’s the cover:

And here’s the back of the LP, with much shorter liner notes this time, once again contributed by Stanley Dance:

Once again, reviews were positive, including another 4 1/2 star rating in Down Beat courtesy of John S. Wilson. “This second set of Armstrong-Ellington collaborations contains some of the former’s most brilliant latter-day performances. Faced with good material that he does not ordinarily play, Armstrong shows he is as much the master of his horn as he ever was. He plays magnificently all through this collection.” (Wilson did take the half-star off for Bigard’s “aimless doddling” and for the vocal on “Azalea” of all things, which he said “Armstrong can only plod through”).

Alas, there would be no more “reunions” between Armstrong and Ellington as the 17 selections recorded 65 years ago this week would be the extent of their studio output (not counting a 1946 Esquire session for RCA and their televised meeting on the 1959 Timex All Star Jazz Show). Now here’s the odd part; it would usually be around this time in a post such as this where we’d start unloading some personal artifacts relating to the album from our Archives–but it turns out we’ve already done that. Jack Bradley had the lyric sheets and two photos and Armstrong kept those other two photos and that was it.

Now the really strange part: the Louis Armstrong Collection doesn’t contain either LP, nor do they pop up on any of Armstrong’s reel-to-reel tapes! I admit I didn’t realize that until putting this post together. Armstrong did record one 70th birthday tribute to himself where “Azalea” was played, but that was it. He loved Ellington’s music and owned many LPs and dubbed many others to tape. And though they weren’t best friends, he got along well enough with Duke, greeting him backstage in 1967 (captured in “Duke Ellington On the Road”), sitting in with him at the Rainbow Grill in 1969 and having other public reunions at Madison Square Garden in 1970 and in Las Vegas in January 1971. But for whatever reason, Armstrong seems to have never really revisited the Roulette sides.

Fortunately for us, in 2001, Roulette itself (now part of the Universal Music empire) decided to revisit the Armstrong-Ellington sessions, reissuing not only the original master takes, but also including an entire bonus “making-of” disc containing breakdowns, discussions, and alternate takes. Because the streaming world doesn’t account for liner notes, here’s the original essay the late Dan Morgenstern provided for this set:

Morgenstern also wrote liner notes for the master takes of the original album, always worth sharing:

If you’ve made it this far and want some music to listen to, here’s everything that exists in session order–enjoy! And long live Louis and the Duke!

April 3, 1961
It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing):

Solitude:

In a Mellow Tone:

I’m Beginning to See the Light–False Starts:

Master Take:

Do Nothin’ Till You Hear from Me–False Starts:

Master Take:

Don’t Get Around Much Anymore–False Starts:

Master Take:

Duke’s Place–False Starts:

Master Take:

I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good):

Just Squeeze Me (But Don’t Tease Me):

The Beautiful American:

April 4, 1961
Drop Me Off in Harlem–False Starts:

Master Take:

Mood Indigo:

I’m Just a Lucky So and So–False Starts:

Master Take:

Azalea–False Starts:

Master Take:

Black and Tan Fantasy–False Starts:

Master Take:

The Mooche:

Cotton Tail–Band Discussion:

Master Take: