07/27/2026
Fascinating analysis by Darcy James Argue: “Last night I had the opportunity to see the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra perform Ellington’s Black, Brown, and Beige, my first time hearing the full piece live. The performance was extraordinary and deeply moving.
Of course, Black, Brown and Beige is a famous piece. The outline of the story is well-known: Duke premiered the 50-minute, three-movement work, which he called a “tone parallel to the history of the American Negro,” at his Carnegie Hall debut in January 1943, and again a few days later at Boston’s Symphony Hall. The piece was critically-savaged — one critic, composer Paul Bowles, writing for the New York Herald-Tribune, called it “formless and meaningless.” Ellington never again performed it in its entirety, and never recorded the complete work. “Well, I guess they didn’t dig it” was all he would say about the critical response.
Though individual extracts from Black, Brown, and Beige have become well-known — particularly the “spiritual theme” from Black, which became “Come Sunday,” and the vocal section of Brown, “The Blues” (“Carnegie Blues” is a smaller slice of this piece) — the work as a whole is more talked-about in jazz history classes than actually listened to or studied.
There are a few reasons for this: one is that the sound quality of the only complete document by Ellington’s band, the live recording of the Carnegie Hall premiere, is extremely poor, even for the era. You should of course listen to it anyway, supplemented by Duke’s later recordings of individual sections, and the JALC Orchestra’s 2020 recording.
The second is that the score was long unavailable. But that is no longer the case — ejazzlines publishes a full score based on Ellington’s own manuscript and the surviving parts. Certainly, every big band writer should study this score carefully!
But I think the third reason is that many people take it as a given that the critics were right — that Black, Brown, and Beige “contained enough bright ideas for several short pieces” (Bowles, again) but that it’s far too long, and doesn’t have the structural integrity to sustain itself for nearly an hour.
And I just want to say: those critics were, and are, wrong. Not just mistaken: shamefully wrong in nearly every particular.
Take the first movement, Black: far from being “formless and meaningless,” it’s one of the most meticulously developed and integrated compositions I have ever studied — the way all the various motives are explored, reharmonized, recontextualized, and finally integrated is an absolute masterclass in sophisticated compositional craft. In Brown, the Caribbean-influenced dances and sprightly duets eventually give way to the sole vocal moment, “The Blues” — Ellington’s best lyric and perhaps the best thing he ever wrote, period. And Beige, which includes Strayhorn’s contribution to the work, the waltz “Sugar Hill Penthouse,” culminates in a remarkable climax that effortlessly weaves in themes from the entire piece.
Experiencing the whole thing live, in a single sitting, is an absolute revelation. I’m so grateful for this performance, with incredible contributions from the entire JALC Orchestra, helmed by Chris Crenshaw, with guests Eli Bishop on violin and Ekep Nkwelle on vocals.
There is nothing remotely like Black, Brown, and Beige before, and practically nothing afterwards of that scope, on that level. It’s a work for the ages.”
