Duke Ellington: Black, Brown and Beige

This recording offers some of Ellington’s most famous big-band works in orchestrations for full symphony orchestra. This is the first ever recording coupling all these pieces on one CD. The Buffalo Philharmonic under JoAnn Falletta gives brilliant, idiomatic performances and terrific sound by Grammy-award-winning producer, Tim Handley.

‘By any measure, Duke Ellington is one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. . . In his Black Brown and Beige, the Duke created a tribute to the tradition of African-American religious faith in the first movement, an elegy to the African-Americans who gave their lives in the Civil War and World Wars I and II, and an evocation of the dawning of a unique culture in Harlem in the 1920s in the final movement.’ – JoAnn Falletta