Ran Blake

Duke Dreams is Ran Blake's solo piano album of music by and around Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, recorded at Barigozzi Studio in Milan on May 27 and June 2, 1981 and released that year by Soul Note. Nine of its twelve tracks are Ellington or Strayhorn compositions, with Me and You heard in two takes, one on each side. The other three are Blake's own title piece, Dave Brubeck's The Duke and Animal Crackers. The sleeve credits reproduced on Blake's own site say the album is dedicated to two inspirations, Mary Lou Williams and Jean Jacques Pussiau.

Giovanni Bonandrini produced the sessions, Giancarlo Barigozzi engineered them, and Gary Giddins wrote the liner notes. They followed directly on Blake's two-piano album with Jaki Byard, Improvisations, taped in the same studio on May 25 and 26, and the first day, May 27, is also the date of Byard's solo To Them - To Us. Side A opens with the three-minute Duke Dreams and moves through Something to Live For, at almost six minutes, Drop Me Off in Harlem, The Duke and Blue Rose. Side B begins with It Don't Mean a Thing and Black and Tan Fantasy, written by Ellington with Bubber Miley, passes through the minute-and-a-half Animal Crackers and Sophisticated Lady, and ends with Strayhorn's Take the A Train. Most pieces stay between two and four minutes; only Something to Live For, Black and Tan Fantasy and the closing A Train pass five.

This is the original 1981 Soul Note LP, catalogue SN 1027, a 140-gram pressing that CAM Jazz says was rediscovered in its vaults: original stock, not a reissue.