Duke Ellington and His Orchestra - Black, Brown And Beige

180-gram gatefold double LP

Remastering by Ray Staff at Air Mastering in London

Black, Brown, & Beige is Duke Ellington's musical representation of the African American experience in the United States. It is arguably The Maestro's greatest work. The triumph of telling so important a story so well
through music alone makes Duke Ellington's Black, Brown, & Beige a masterpiece. Black, Brown, & Beige also displays Duke's, and jazz's, highest achievement in long form. Whether you perceive it as a three movement
symphony or accept Ellington's own personalized terminology "Tone Parallel," Black, Brown, & Beige matches conceptually and in artistic content the musical continuity of Western Classical's greatest names in their lengthiest
works.

The history of Black, Brown, & Beige is in its own right momentous. Ellington premiered the work at Carnegie Hall on January 23, 1943, at Duke's first performance on that illustrious stage.

The Maestro has created the Come Sunday Suite. Duke Ellington basically reduced his three movement work to its first, "Black," elevating that movement's spiritual theme, "Come Sunday," making it the melody of the edited work. Truncating the symphony Black, Brown, & Beige into the song "Come Sunday" works because Duke Ellington has expanded "Come Sunday" through numerous theme and variations unknown to the original.

The piece deresistance: a sacred text, by Duke himself, a text sung by the best known African-American religious singer in history, Mahalia Jackson. There is no doubt that it is the presence and performance of Mahalia Jackson that secures a home in the pantheon for this recasting of Black, Brown, & Beige, a work that already resided there.

And Duke Ellington pulled off this coup with one hand tied behind his back, or without the services of his right hand man. Overlooked over the years since the album Black, Brown, & Beige was recorded in February 1958 is the
absence of Johnny Hodges (Hodges did a gig with Strayhorn in Florida during this period), the Ellington band's premier soloist.

Side A

1. Part 1

2. Part 11

3. Part 111 (aka Light)

Side B

1. Part 1V (aka Come Sunday)

2. Part V (aka Come Sunday)

3. Part V1 (23rd Psalm)

Side C

1. Track 360 (aka Trains)(alt. take)

2. Blues In Orbit (aka Tender)(alt. take)

3. Part 1 (alt. take)

4. Part 11 (alt. take)

5. Part 111 (aka Light) (alt. take)

Side D

1. Part 1V (aka Come Sunday)(alt. take)

2. Part V (aka Come Sunday)(alt. take)

3. Part V1 (23rd Psalm)(alt. take)

4.Studio Conversation (Mahalia swears)

5. Come Sunday (a capella)

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