The legendary Duke Ellington gets the second St. Thomas tribute of his centennial year Saturday, when the University of the Virgin Islands Jazz Ensemble presents its annual fall concert in the campus cafeteria.
The program will feature compositions by Ellington, who died in 1974, and his longtime friend and collaborator, Billy Strayhorn. Appearing as guest vocalists will be Cheryl Clendinen and Charlon Richardson.
Ensemble director Martin J. Lamkin, an associate professor of music at UVI, was among the musicians taking part in the earlier St. Thomas tribute to the Duke — a fund raiser for the Council on Alcoholism St. Thomas-St. John held at the Renaissance Grand Beach Resort last month.
For Saturday's concert, he'll be calling on two UVI colleagues — concert band director Austin Venzen, who will perform a clarinet solo on "Across the Track Blues," and concert choir director Lorna Young-Wright, who will play a piano solo, "Lotus," which Strayhorn wrote and Ellington often played as a tribute to his friend after Strayhorn's death.
In addition to the music itself, the program will include narrations about Ellington's music and his life.
According to Lamkin, "You couldn't tell the writing of Billy Strayhorn from Duke Ellington's — that's how similar they were."
Several of the pieces on the program are from the Lincoln Center Library and were recently performed by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Band: "Across the Track Blues," "Black and Tan Fantasy," "Boy Meets Horn," "C Jam Blues" and "Cottontail." The evening will also feature such standards as "Don't Get Around Much Anymore," "Mood Indigo," "Solitude" and "Take the A Train."
The concert begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are $5 general admission and $3 for students. They're being sold at The Education Station, at Modern Music in Nisky Center and on campus at the Humanities Division office.
