Duke Ellington
Piano Solo on
Take the Coltrane

About

Duke Ellington's piano solo opens the improvisation on "Take the Coltrane," a spirited blues he composed and titled as a playful tribute to his collaborator. He takes two choruses of the 12-bar blues form at 254 BPM in F, the first of three solos on this track from the 1962 Duke Ellington and John Coltrane album. Ellington's blues piano is rhythmically buoyant and harmonically inventive, his distinctive voicings and stride-influenced approach providing a compelling opening statement before Coltrane's extended eleven-chorus tenor saxophone solo.

Duke Ellington was 62 to 63 years old at the time.