Black, Brown and Beige New York Performances

Duke Ellington wrote *Black, Brown and Beige* for his 1943 Carnegie Hall debut, using the concert hall as a public forum for jazz and for American history. Structured as an extended suite, it traces Black life in the United States, from labor and faith to struggle and endurance, and argues for jazz as serious composition. At Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra under Wynton Marsalis performs the work with guest vocalist Catherine Russell, placing it back in a New York lineage of big-band modernism. One clear point remains: the piece still measures the country against its stated ideals.