(FORTUNE Magazine) – Duke Ellington Ellington at Newport (Complete) Columbia/Legacy

At The moment Harry Carney's baritone started buzzing beneath the Ellington band's "Star Spangled Banner," July 7, 1956, became one of the greatest nights in jazz history. That was the evening Paul Gonsalves lifted his tenor sax and the entire Newport Jazz Festival crowd to unscaled heights with 27 ecstatic choruses of "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue." It put Ellington on the cover of Time, reestablished the preeminence of his band, and made the resulting Ellington at Newport his best-selling album ever.

Except it was a fake. The Gonsalves number is genuine--it couldn't possibly have been replicated--but thanks to the sleuthing of jazz historian Phil Schaap, we now know that much of Ellington at Newport consists of studio remakes from the following week, welded to snatches of the actual Newport event. Add in some bogus applause, even some retakes of Duke's stage announcements, and you've still got Ellington--but not at Newport.

Now comes a corrective. The two-CD Ellington at Newport (Complete) not only relies strictly on the live tapes but takes them a step further: There were two sets of recording mikes on the stage that famous evening, and this new mix gives us something very near to genuine stereo. Gonsalves' 27 choruses haven't sounded this good in 43 years.

--Daniel Okrent

DANIEL OKRENT is editor at large of Time Inc.