EIF 26: JLCO Plays Duke Ellington

Usher Hall, Edinburgh - 11/08/26

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Chris Crenshaw (conductor), Ekep Nkwelle (vocals). Featured artists: Anthony Hervey (trumpet), Summer Camargo (trumpet), Joe Webb (piano), Paloma Ximena (saxophone), Domo Branch (drums)

A complete performance of ‘Black, Brown and Beige’ an extended jazz work written by Duke Ellington for his first concert at Carnegie Hall on 23 January 1943, took centre stage for the second half of this engaging tribute to one of the great voices of twentieth century music.

Wynton Marsalis forsook the spotlight to play the role of narrator through the first half. For this journey with the Duke, his now iconic Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra was joined by an array of stellar musical guests for a set of ten pieces that illustrated both Ellington’s collaborations and his influences.

Featuring ‘All Too Soon’ along with ‘Portrait of Louis Armstrong’ from The New Orleans Suite, the musical momentum gradually built through to a loose-limbed but exacting drum-driven big band account of Juan Tizol and the Duke’s ‘Caravan’. Domo Branch, making his third appearance at EIF over the past four years, was the percussive engine for this 1936 tune.

Before that, Anthony Hervey made the trumpet sing lyrically on ‘All Heart’ (from Portrait of Ella Fitzgerald), Paloma Ximena lit up the central saxophone motifs for ‘The Mooche’, which featured alongside another New Orleans number, ‘Harlem Airshaft’. Meanwhile, ‘Sunset and the Mockingbird’ (Queen’s Suite) was beautifully conversational.

Next came ‘Dances in Love’ (from Perfume Suite), featuring Joe Web on floating piano keys entwined with double bass, and swinging finger snaps from the JLCO. Marsalis wryly observed that he and his orchestra knew this piece as ‘The Duke Ellington Stomp for Beginners’, and stomp it certainly did.

Then, before the interval, fast-rising trumpeter Summer Camargo took the stage for ‘Echoes of Harlem’ (New Orleans Suite again), showing both creativity and restrain on her instrument, with and without mute. Ellington’s collaboration with Jimmy Hamilton, ‘Tutti for Cootie’ ended this set on a high.

Throughout the first half the JLCO guided itself on well-rehearsed classics, with soloists from the orchestra alongside featured guests add thoughtful improvisational touches within a set of standards faithfully rendered.

That intention of honouring the jazz-blues tradition while making it live, breathe and inspire for current and future generations also sums up the approach to the nearly 50-minute ‘Black, Brown and Beige’, for which Chris Crenshaw took up the baton. Nicola Benedetti had a solo violin cameo as part of this extended and cohesive suite – one of Duke Ellington’s major compositional statements, and testimony to his enduring legacy.