Duke Ellington Ellington '66

The mid-1960s Duke Ellington band had become a cultural institution, performing concerts regularly abroad, with its leader showered with honors, including a Lifetime achievement award at the Grammys. However this didn't stop them recording more contemporary, commercial fare. This release, with trumpeter Cootie Williams very much in evidence, captures the orchestra swinging for the fences, with arrangements of two Beatles songs--a Latin-tinged "All My Loving" and an artfully deconstructed "I Want to Hold Your Hand--as well as hits of the day, like "People," and a trio of Henry Mancini-composed movie themes in "Charade," "Moon River," and "Days of Wine and Roses."