January 23, 1943 stands out as one of the most significant dates in the annals of jazz. It was on this evening that Duke Ellington premiered his first and only symphony at Carnegie Hall. He didn’t call it Symphony #1 or even refer to it as a symphony, but in essence that’s what it is: a 3- movement motivic-driven work divided into nine parts lasting 52 minutes.

Black: Work Song, Come Sunday, Light

Brown: West Indian Dance, Emancipation Celebration, The Blues

Beige: Beige, Cy Runs Rock Waltz, Symphonette

As great as this piece was, many critics failed to understand both its importance and its greatness. The classical critics only saw its minor flaws in continuity and didn’t understand Ellington’s jazz harmonic, structural, and developmental language and process. On the other hand, the jazz reviewers weren’t ready for jazz to leave the dance hall and viewed BBB as pretentious. The sold-out audience (who attended despite a blizzard) disagreed and was overwhelmingly enthusiastic.

Due to the AF of M recording ban at that time, no commercial recording was made. However, the concert was recorded live but wasn’t released until three decades later. When the recording ban ended, Ellington recorded a few excerpts of BBB in December 1944. He never performed the piece in its entirety again. When he recorded portions of it in later years, he still didn’t fix all the original problems, the most egregious of which was the ultrapatriotic ending. The 1945 RCA recordings, although incomplete, are the best played and recorded. The piece and the band were a bit unprepared at the premiere, and later bands had vastly different personnel that didn’t always address the earlier music. There have been several performances since Ellington’s death, but, considering the quality of music and its historical importance, this gem has been overlooked.

Come Sunday has become well-known to jazz fans and many churchgoers, but it’s only one of the great themes in BBB. Ellington’s initial idea for this piece was the 1935 short film Symphony In Black, which was a series of vignettes depicting contemporary Negro life in America. Although the film won an Academy Award for Best Short Subject, it suffers from being too short and lack of musical preparation. Ellington ran out of time and used previously written pieces to tell the story. Ducky Wucky, Saddest Tale, and Merry Go-Round are all great pieces but lack the cohesion of a singular work.

If Symphony In Black was too big a story to tell in 15 minutes, BBB attempted to tell the entire 324-year history of the American Negro in 52 minutes. Mistake number one. BBB begins with Work Song, which bears a strong resemblance to the opening scene of Symphony In Black’s The Laborers. It’s fully developed and leads to the spiritual theme, Come Sunday, which is similar to Hymn Of Sorrow, the spiritual theme of Symphony In Black. Light closes out the first movement. Curiously, Brown begins with two standalone dances before concluding with The Blues, which combines operatic recitative, harmonically sophisticated and earthy downhome blues.

The contiguous Beige includes a bit of Billy Strayhorn’s writing in 3/4 before easing into Ellington’s expressive medium swing. It’s clear that a solid ending is called for, but Ellington’s frequent mental block surfaces. He decides to write a patriotic coda for Herb Jeffries to sing. When this proved to be too over the top, he removed the vocal, but the flag waving was still too much. He never did find a satisfactory ending.

In an inspired piece of music with numerous memorable themes, The Blues stands out as one of Ellington’s most iconic pieces. There is nothing like it in his entire canon. Like Come Sunday, it is clearly a concert piece, while descending from the dance hall, it has no place there. The Blues is a dramatic description which draws on jazz and blues as well as the recitative/accompaniment of opera.