Worldwide Shipping Ellington, Duke. (1899-1974) "i'm Brown But I'm Red, White & Blue" - Unpublished Autograph Song Manuscript Your 85% Coupon Inside [fbo9Nmcd]

If asked to identify Ellington's magnum opus, many Ellington authorities would point to "Black, Brown and Beige," which traced in music the journey of African Americans from Africa to the new world, slavery, emancipation and beyond. When the piece received its Carnegie Hall premiere on 1/23/43, it was, at 48 minutes, Ellington's longest extended work, but when it was given its dress rehearsal the night before at Rye High School, it was two minutes longer.  Leonard Feather, a celebrated writer on Jazz who was working as press agent for Ellington at the time of the concert, recalled the occasion in his autobiography, "The Jazz Years: Earwitness to an Era" (p. 64): "We were all stunned by the brilliance of Duke's 'tone parallel to the history of the American Negro,' as he subtitled it. Most of us had just one reservation: towards the end of the 'Beige' movement, Duke had written a lyric, pompously delivered by Jimmy Britton, declaring that: We're black, brown and beige but we're red, white and blue.' Such simplistic flag-waving seemed redundant, but I had already found out that Duke was stubborn about clinging to his convictions. Only after [talent agent] Bill [William] Morris, Dr. [J.T.] Mize [head of the music department at Rye High School], Dan James [Ruth Ellington's husband] and I had expressed our feelings strongly was it agreed that Duke did not need to wear his Americanism on his sleeve. The lyrics were eliminated and 'B, B & B' ran forty-eight instead of fifty minutes the next night."