Jazz Ensemble

A Duke Ellington Quasquicentennial

Duke Ellington’s influence throughout jazz history as a composer, pianist, orchestrator, and improviser is indisputable. With 2024 marking his 125th birthday, the UChicago Jazz Ensemble will celebrate by exploring a broad range of compositions drawn from Ellington’s oeuvre. From the Cotton Club in New York City of the late 1920s, to his masterful creations with bassist Jimmy Blanton in the 1940s, to his extended works of the 1950s and 1960s, the ensemble will perform a program of Ellington’s widely celebrated tunes as well as lesser performed gems. Come reminisce in tempo as the ensemble performs the works of this remarkable American composer.

Free admission

This concert will be livestreamed here on our website and on the Department of Music’s YouTube channel. youtube.com/@UChicagoMusic.