“I’m not going to do justice to Duke Ellington tonight in just one lecture,” speaker Rusty Hassan said to the audience on Monday evening. This two-hour session was just one part of a series taking place at the Mansion at Strathmore Hall in celebration of the life and music of the world-renowned jazz composer, arranger, pianist, and Washingtonian. The series, entitled the Discover Ellington Festival, runs from the Feb. 3 to 20 and focuses on the “African-American Aesthetic,” making this praiseworthy celebration all the more appropriate during Black History Month.
Monday’s session showcased a condensed history of Ellington’s music, beginning with records from the twenties chronicling the development of the New Orleans “jungle sound” at New York’s Cotton Club and concluding with the artist’s live show in Newport in 1956. While two hours was nowhere near enough time to touch on every facet of Ellington’s work, Hassan, a WPDW DJ and representative of the Duke Ellington Society, threw an almost overwhelming amount of information into the presentation.
Guiding the lecture was the counterintuitive central theme of Ellington’s dislike for the term “jazz.” With no firm etymology or meaning, the label for the genre came to disgust not only Ellington, who claimed in his book Music is My Mistress that he doesn’t “believe in categories of any kind,” but also from John Edward Hasse, author of Beyond Categories. This Ellington biography in part served as the framework of Hassan’s presentation, which resulted in a well-informed lecture that, despite not quite doing justice to a jazz master, fully captured the essence of Ellington’s work.
The theme of the festival as a whole also ran through the presentation. Over much of his career, Ellington was forced to limit his virtuosity to the length of a 78 rpm record, the dominant form of recorded music until the early 1950s. Combined with his distaste for the common name for jazz, which he simply referred to as American music, this limitation proved an asset, as each three-minute composition drew on an incredible depth of inspiration. Consequently, the diversity of musical traditions wrapped up in Ellington’s personal style has allowed the Strathmore to schedule a full month of programming filled to the brim with award-winning musicians and scholars.
While tickets to many of the remaining performances carry a fee of over $30, the lineup is well worth the price. Arturo O’Farrill’s Grammy-winning Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra featuring Latin Jazz master and 10-time Grammy winner Paquito D’Rivera will perform Ellington’s big band compositions along with original pieces inspired by his work. The festival will also include the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra performing Ellington’s three “sacred concerts,” described by Ellington as his most important work. Those who wish to pay tribute to Ellington’s music without literally paying tribute can attend the free panel discussion featuring Hasse, composer David Schiff, and Strathmore CEO Eliot Pfanstiehl as well as the concluding annual family festival celebrating the Ellington’s extensive legacy.
While just one two-hour lecture will not do justice to Ellington’s musical genius, the Strathmore’s Duke Ellington Festival brings together his incredible life and body of work with an awe-inspiring line-up of musicians and experts. Together, these masters bring life and pay homage to this legend of American music.
