The Duke Ellington Song Book

Following their sold-out inaugural Dean Street 2023 concert and a follow up successful return last few years, we had no hesitation in arranging this further 2026 Summertime return for Pete Long and his Echoes of Ellington Big Band presenting the Duke Ellington Song Book. In 1914, a young man, Edward Ellington, wrote a simple piano piece entitled Soda Fountain Rag. Over the next sixty years, he would compose a cannon of work which would have him recognised as the foremost American composer of any genre. Nicknamed Duke by his school-friends because of his regal bearing, Ellington’s music contains a unique blend of contrasts and contradictions. At once cutting edge and elegant, intimate and shouting, traditional and progressive, the music is unique, exciting, earthy and refined. The Echoes of Ellington Orchestra, was formed to celebrate the Duke’s music, and to bring it, by live performance, to a modern audience. Jazz enthusiasts the length and breadth of the U.K., and later on in Europe and the United States, have been amazed by the group’s ability to get inside the scores and really bring out the Ellington flavour. Today, the orchestra is in its finest incarnation yet, with highly specialised virtuoso players on all the instruments who understand intimately the nuances put on the page by the Duke.