Black, Brown and Beige Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra & Wynton Marsalis

Blue Engine Records, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s in-house recording label, has released a present-day recording of Duke Ellington’s groundbreaking masterpiece Black, Brown and Beige by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. Captured during a live, Rose Theater performance in 2018, Black, Brown and Beige is Wynton Marsalis’s first recording of the work and Blue Engine’s first release dedicated entirely to Ellington.

Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Managing and Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis explains, “Black, Brown and Beige sits alone in the history of jazz. It covers a mosaic of not just Afro-American but of American styles of music.” The expert musicians of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, alongside special guests Brianna Thomas (vocals) and Eli Bishop (violin), are perfectly equipped to tackle its stirring stylistic breadth. The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra’s spirited take on Ellington’s epic work pays tribute to some of the maestro’s most personal work while adding another important chapter to its enduring legacy.

Since its 1943 debut at Carnegie Hall, the piece—a sprawling survey of African American history—has been heralded as one of the most significant compositions in American orchestral music. Now, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis is releasing a definitive, present-day recording of Black, Brown and Beige that conveys all the nuances and emotion of Ellington’s grandest work.