Jersey Jazz, the magazine of the New Jersey Jazz Society, features the Rutgers Jazz Lab Big Band’s performance of Duke Ellington’s Black, Brown, and Beige on February 28, 2024, at the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center, as its Editor’s Choice in the February issue.
The album, which premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1943, “is a beautifully written and powerful work that has not been fully appreciated or understood, largely because there have been few opportunities to hear performances of the entire piece and few commercially available recordings,” says faculty member Anthony Branker, who directs the Jazz Lab band. “I believe the most rewarding part of this experience for the students is having the opportunity to immerse themselves in the unique performance practices associated with the Ellington Orchestra and experiencing firsthand the depth and beauty of Edward Kennedy ‘Duke’ Ellington the conceptualist, who, as a writer, was responsible for creating a compositional and arranging paradigm that would have a profound effect on the jazz language.”
Read more in the full issue of Jersey Jazz, and get tickets to the concert, which are just $15 for the public, with discounts for the RU community. The concerts starts at 7:30 p.m. at New Brunswick Performing Arts Center.