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Show Duke Plays In Church By RALPH J. GLEASON Periodically the argument arises over whether or not jazz is suitable music to be played in a church. The point is moot when the music of Duke Ellington is concerned because; be-cause; empirically, it is obvious that Ellington's music is suitable to be played anywhere. The latest example of that was his performance of his Sacred Concert Con-cert at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Ellington began his series of Sacred Sa-cred Concerts at Grace Cathedral two years ago. This is an entirely new concert program with new music (nothing in it had ever been heard before except in previous performances on this tour) and it is a most satisfactory and uplifting musical experience. The program utilizes the orchestra orches-tra and its soloists as a frame of reference for a series of vocal numbers num-bers sung by Trish Turner, a delightful de-lightful new addition to the band, Tony Watkins, whose voice has graced the band for some time now and Peggy Flake, a school teacher who was specially selected for this one performance. The vocal soloists are joined by a chorus for several numbers and Ellington has scored the the chorus and the H ! that they are an integral m?a times it is almost inj' S i tell whether the sound C?'1 to i is vocal or instrumental ! The Ellington music back the years is among 0Ur cultural assets and this an extension of that materiS Lt ' all part of the Ellington ! indicates how little his earlv ' sitions, for instance, were stood. I suspect that all of S6' ton's music is actually ant. ' i to this setting, not just CT 1 he composed specially jor M performances. cCi j Of course the greatest ' the Ellington music lies jn 11 poser's ability to combine ? in individual voices (instruS and vocal) which can also ! k deep emotion, with ensemble!"" I ages which lend a truly rem , ' to the music. reWo:r The consistency of T lS fas;onishing- The Zk which features trumpeter Cw t Williams, for instance, must tainly be at least the tenth or twelfth he has written for th soloist over the years and yet it k fresh and interesting while conj ing all the old sounds. |
