David Dalle
Thursday February 6th, 2025 with David Dalle
Black History Month: Black, Brown and Beige Part I. Music from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Gabon, Ghana, Niger, Mali.

For this year's first Black History Month program, we will be hearing Duke Ellington's most ambitious work in a live recording of its premiere at Carnegie Hall in 1943. Ellington had a long standing desire to perform at Carnegie Hall, America's most prestigious concert stage, and he was resentful that Benny Goodman beat him to the mark of being the first jazz played at Carnegie Hall in 1938. When Ellington finally got the chance to perform there in January, 1943, he quickly composed, over six weeks, a large scale work in three movements to premiere at the concert. Ellington wanted to show that jazz could be so much more than just dance hall music. He described "Black, Brown and Beige" as a musical description of Black American and Caribbean history. The concert was well over two hours long with "Black, Brown and Beige" the centrepiece. The audience, which comprised many famous musicians and people such as Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra, and Eleanor Roosevelt, was very enthusiastic, but the reviews after the concert mostly ranged from tepid to hostile concerning "Black, Brown and Beige". The most negative were from white Classical music critics. Perhaps stung by the reviews, Ellington never performed the complete work again after 1943. He did perform a revised version of the first movement and recorded this in 1958. However, the 1943 Carnegie Hall concert was recorded and released, so we can hear the full piece from its premiere. The Ottawa Jazz Orchestra will be performing the complete "Black, Brown and Beige" at the NAC on Feb 22nd. A very rare chance to hear this work live! https://nac-cna.ca/en/event/37020