Duke Ellington made foundational contributions to jazz, pop and classical genres. To this day, people are still debating how to categorize him and his music.
Did he bring jazz aesthetics to the symphonic world, or did he bring symphonic sensibilities to jazz? The answer is a bit of both.
It all started at Ellington’s segregated elementary school in Washington, D.C., where he learned Black history and developed a fierce sense of Black pride. His teachers emphasized the best way to fight injustice was through high achievement. That idea shaped everything about his musical persona.
In 1927, Ellington became the first Black band leader to have nationwide reach. It was the perfect vehicle for Ellington’s subtle activism.
In an article for Rhythm Magazine, he wrote, “All arrangements of historic American Negro music have been made by conservatory-trained musicians who inevitably handle it with a European technique. It’s time a big piece of music was written from the inside.”
That composition from the inside arrived in 1943, Ellington’s first large-scale composition, Black, Brown and Beige. It premiered at Carnegie Hall.
While the piece received mixed reviews at the premiere, today it gets plenty of overdue praise. According to Wynton Marsalis, “It sits alone in the history of jazz.”
Credits
Host: Vernon Neal
Producer: Dan Nass
Writers: Andrea Blain and Scott Blankenship
Executive Producer: Julie Amacher
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About Rhapsody in Black
Where we turn up the voices of Black artists in the world of classical music, with host Vernon Neal.
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