The Music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn with the Novel Jazz Septet
Celebrate Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn on Wednesday, August 6th, at 7pm, at the Trinitarian Congregational Church in Castine, Maine. The Novel Jazz Septet is on a mission to keep the music of Ellington and Strayhorn “alive and swinging.”
Between them, Duke and Strays wrote several thousand compositions over their musical careers. The septet will perform standard tunes from the Ellington/ Strayhorn repertoire plus newly arranged compositions that they have unearthed from original recordings, as well as manuscripts from the Ellington Archives of the Smithsonian Museum of American History and the Strayhorn Collection at the Library of Congress. Novel Jazz members have dusted these pieces off, rearranged them for the septet, and given them a 21st century sound, all of their own, according to the press release.
Visit castinearts.org for more information or email info@castinearts.org. To find out more about the band, navigate to mainejazz.net. Remember, “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing! So, bop on over to Trinitarian Congregational Church for some classic jazz by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn!
(Picture: Penobscot Bay Press)
