“An Evening of Duke Ellington: Sentimental Mood" at the Coralville Center for the Performing Arts -- September 26.
Friday, September 26, 7:30 p.m.
Coralville Center for the Performing Arts, 1301 Fifth Street, Coralville IA
Fifty-one years after his passing, the music of the man who introduced the world to "Take the A-Train," "Caravan," "Sophisticated Lady," "Satin Doll," and other classics will be performed by the Coralville Center for the Performing Arts Big Band in An Evening of Duke Ellington: Sentimental Mood. a September 26 evening boasting vocalists Mary Denmead, Katelyn Halverson, and Steven Jepson, and presented by Josh Sazon and Wes Habley as part of the American Songbook series.
Born in Washington, D.C. in 1899, Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem. In the 1930s, his orchestra toured Europe several times, and some of the jazz musicians who were members of Ellington's orchestra, such as saxophonist Johnny Hodges, are considered among the genre's all-time-finest players. Ellington melded them into the best-regarded orchestral unit in the history of jazz, with some members choosing to stay with the orchestra for several decades. In the opinion of composers and historians Gunther Schuller and Barry Kernfeld, Ellington is widely considered "the most significant composer of the genre.”
A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78-rpm recording format, Ellington wrote or collaborated on more than 1,000 compositions, his extensive body of work is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, and many of his pieces have become standards. He also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, such as Juan Tizol's "Caravan," that brought a Spanish tinge to big-band jazz. At the end of the 1930s, Ellington began a nearly 30-year collaboration with composer/arranger/pianist Billy Strayhorn, with whom the artist composed multiple extended compositions, suites, and short pieces. Over the course of his career, Ellington earned 14 Grammy awards, three of which were posthumous, and a total of 24 nominations, and although the 75-year-old passed away in 1974, he was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize Special Award for music in 1999. Among the most familiar of Ellington's cherished tunes are “It Don't Mean a Thing,” “In a Sentimental Mood,” “Sophisticated Lady,” and “Satin Doll,” with additional United States chart-toppers including “Three Little Words,” “Cocktails for Two,” “I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart,” and “Do Nothin' Till You Hear from Me.”
An Evening of Duke Ellington: Sentimental Mood will be presented at the Coralville Center for the Performing Arts on September 26, admission to the 7:30 p.m. event is $14.50-25.30, and more information and tickets are available by calling (319)248-9370 and visiting CoralvilleArts.org.
