Some say that The Far East Suite is probably the most beautiful item of Ellington’s and Strayhorn’s entire output. The album was inspired by a giant 1963 tour undertaken by Ellington and his orchestra which included performances in the biggest cities of the Near East like Damascus, Amman, Ramall'ah, Kabul, New Delhi, Bangalore, Madras, Bombay, Calcutta, Karachi, Tehran, Isfahan, Baghdad or Beirut.) In early 1964, while on tour in England, Ellington and Strayhorn performed four pieces of music for the first time (Mynah, Depk, Agra, and Amad), which they called Expressions of the Far East. Their following 1964 tour in Japan inspired a further piece, Ad Lib on Nippon. By the time of the recording sessions in late 1966 Ellington and Strayhorn had added four more pieces. (The famous Isfahan was formerly known as Elf, and had in fact been written months prior to the 1963 tour.) The resulting The Far East Suite, a milestone album in the entire jazz-history, became the final one to feature Strayhorn’s compositions that was released during his life.

MAO takes us to this wonderful musical journey, performing the suite in its original orchestration, presenting the whole composition for the very first time ever in Hungary.