Why Music Matters: Jazz and Early American Music

Duke Ellington Orchestra

Through an interactive performance by the Duke Ellington orchestra, the audience will go on Duke’s journey from Washington, D.C. to New York City, where he digs deep into this music called jazz as it’s being birthed from the belly of New Orleans. The Duke Ellington Orchestra will illustrate how Duke’s discovery of the blues and the development of his own innovative ideas created a new vernacular that would forever change the musical landscape of jazz. His legacy as a composer, leader and vanguard of American music is celebrated through this hour-long, family event.

Considered one of the greatest jazz composers of all time, Duke Ellington had an enormous impact on the popular music of the late 20th century. His professional career as a musician spanned more than six decades, and among his more than two thousand songs are hits including “In a Sentimental Mood,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “I Got It Bad And That Ain’t Good,” and “I’m Beginning the See the Light.” Ellington was the recipient of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award as well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and was awarded a posthumous Special Pulitzer Prize for his lifetime contributions to music and culture.