Duke Ellington & His Famous Orchestra – Dusk / Warm Valley 78 RPM | Victor P-138 | 1943 | From "A Duke Ellington Panorama"

This is disc four — the final record — from Victor's "A Duke Ellington Panorama," a four-disc Smart Set album released in March 1943. The timing is significant: the album was pressed during the American Federation of Musicians recording strike, meaning Victor assembled it entirely from reissues of earlier Ellington sides rather than new recordings. As a result, the P-138 set spans an extraordinary sixteen years of Ellington's career, from 1927 through 1940.

This particular disc pairs two of his most atmospheric compositions. "Dusk" was recorded May 28, 1940, and "Warm Valley" followed on October 17, 1940 — both from what many consider Ellington's most creative period, when he had assembled one of the finest orchestras of his career and was writing with real compositional ambition. Both are slow, richly textured pieces that showcase exactly what set Ellington apart from every other bandleader of the era: an orchestra that functioned as a single expressive instrument.

The other three discs in the set cover earlier classics including "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo," "The Mooche," "Mood Indigo," and "Ring Dem Bells," making this the most modern-sounding disc of the four — and arguably the most musically sophisticated.

Genre: Jazz / Big Band / Orchestral Jazz

---

Shipping: Every record ships in a new 12×12×4 box, bubble-wrapped and sandwiched between cardboard. Free shipping included. Buying multiple records? Message us first — we combine and discount.

---

Historical details are researched to the best of our ability, but records this old can surprise even the experts. If something looks off, we encourage you to verify — and we're always happy to hear corrections.