“The Music of Duke Ellington” will be presented by Peter Luce at the Morgan-Manning House, Thursday, March 7, at 7:30 p.m. The Victorian style home, located at 151 Main Street, Brockport, is headquarters for the Western Monroe Historical Society which sponsors the event. Admission is free. Dessert and discussion will be provided after the presentation.
Ellington was a pianist, composer, arranger, and band leader. With audio and visual presentations, Luce will describe and illustrate each of these attributes with recorded examples.
Peter Luce says he has been a jazz fan since high school, and is not a musician. Teaching jazz history courses since 2002, he “found that teaching forces one to read in more depth and to listen more critically.” He has presented courses on Ellington and other jazz musicians at Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at RIT and at the Chautauqua Institution.
In the fall/winter of 2011-2012, his course at Osher was “Duke Ellington 1925-1945: A Musical, Social & Cultural History.” The course description stated, in part, “When Duke Ellington began his career, he faced the significant challenges of a segregated music business and limitations imposed on black artists in the Jim Crow America of the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s.” The course explored how Ellington addressed these challenges to achieve a multi-racial, international audience.
For other information on the March 7 event, phone the Morgan-Manning House at (585) 637-3645.
