In January 1943, Duke Ellington presented the Boston Symphony Hall premiere of "Black, Brown and Beige" ("BBB").  The New York City premiere had occurred five days prior, on January 23^rd, at Carnegie Hall.  Mr. Ellington might have known then that he would never perform "BBB" in its entirety again.  He certainly could not have known that as he was presenting this Boston performance, there was a seven-month old infant a stone's throw away from Symphony Hall, who would, forty-four years later, create the concerto-grosso orchestration of his full-length "BBB".  This is an outline of that journey.

As we grew up from the mid-to-late 1940s in the Roxbury / Dorchester section of Boston, my parents exposed me and my siblings to a rich variety of music, from the Boston Symphony and Pops orchestras to the big band greats, and encouraged my early efforts at singing "doo-wop", playing the piano and violin, and soaking up the popular music of the day ( my mother was a respected soprano vocal artist in Boston ).  Visiting big bands frequented the area.  Russell Procope, alto saxophonist and clarinetist in the Ellington orchestra,  would tell me many years later that when performing in Boston,  Mr. Ellington and his musicians jammed and partied with such local notables as Sabby Lewis and his big band, and others in the neighborhood.  My dad told me that he drank liquor with Johnny Hodges (Hodges and Harry Carney were from the Boston area).  Pop entertained as a tap dancer while in law school, and met my mother when they were both singing in a community chorus in the Lenox Street housing projects, where we lived.

Throughout the 1950s, I enjoyed singing in the best local vocal quartets, banging out rhythm & blues on the piano, listening to crooners, rock & roll, jazz and classical music, and living much of my childhood and adolescence through the romance of song.

In the Spring of 1964, at age 21, I was employed in a Boston hospital and had finished a year at Hampton Institute (now University) in Virginia, studying math and physics, where jazz musicians (especially the late Weldon Ervine) had whetted my appetite for the art form; but this, and my teenage saturation of R & B and rock and roll, could barely have prepared me for what was about to happen:

While relaxing in my apartment in Cambridge, I received a Calling:  A transcendent beam of light from above me descended upon me, penetrating my mind, and told me, literally: "Go to San Francisco and study music."  Best described, this light was similar in appearance to a laser beam, coming directly down from above, literally going within me, speaking those exact words and then ascending, disappearing and leaving me stunned and in awe. ( Decades later, looking back, I realized that during that same Spring of '64, Billy Strayhorn, who had been Mr. Ellington's composing and arranging assistant since 1939, and who was very close to Mr. Ellington, was diagnosed with a serious illness.  By 1973, Mr. Ellington needed someone to write for him and his orchestra. I was chosen.  My forthcoming  "Gathering Diamonds from Dust, a Memoir from an Unknown Ellingtonian" (c) , illuminates my Calling that Spring, re-lives the stories of my resulting spiritual / Christian experiences, chronicles my subsequent life in church, popular and classical music and highlights my experiences with Mr. Ellington and his orchestra (1973), his music, his family and the challenges of that lifelong  adventure. This autobiographical outline is adapted from that Memoir). 

I immediately left Boston, arrived, by Greyhound bus, in San Francisco shortly thereafter, took a year to settle and begin music studies, and discovered (Fall '65) that Duke Ellington was about to present the world premiere of his First Sacred Concert, atop Nob Hill at Grace Cathedral. I strongly believe that the Calling prepared and brought me to San Francisco in time to witness that concert, which is where this story really begins to take shape.

The experience of observing Mr. Ellington and his orchestra (for the first time) was illuminating.  I stood throughout the performance.  At one point during the concert, Mr. Ellington looked directly at me for several seconds. Our eye contact carried an inner revelation for me, a mutual attunement and a reflection and other-worldly significance: there was, for a seemingly-long moment, an illuminating presence, for me, of that same light that had called me.  This time, though, it also filled the Cathedral sanctuary with the beauty and glory of the performance of Mr. Ellington's Sacred Music (with his orchestra, soloists, choir, narration, etc.). At some level, I knew that there was meaning in that moment of direct contact between us.  At that time, I just couldn't verbalize or otherwise clarify and articulate it - to myself or to anyone else.  It would take decades for me to understand it fully enough to perceive its spiritual significance and to respond to its inherent mission.

During each of his visits to San Francisco between 1965 and 1973, the nature of our communications would vary.  In 1973, he personally invited (commanded!) me to conduct one of my compositions, leading his orchestra at Disneyland.  Our communications leading up to that experience started on the Friday night before Palm Sunday.  I was first in line outside of the Great American Music Hall (GAMH), a supper club in S.F., when the Ellington band bus pulled up to unload orchestra members and equipment.  I introduced myself to Mercer Ellington, Duke's son, showing him some photos of my own fledgling big band and other (symphony orchestra) work.  Mercer invited me to ride the band bus up to Sacramento the following day. (!)

As the band performed that Friday night at GAMH, I sat at a dinner table, front and center, and by then the communication between Mr. Ellington and myself led to his asking for my telephone number at first intermission. The following day, I rode  on the band bus to Sacramento (with the Ellington Orchestra!), sat back stage as the band played at the Sacramento Community Theater, and after conversing with maestro Ellington after the concert (there's much more to this part of this story!), he told me to call him at the Anaheim Hotel at Disneyland.  Once back in San Francisco, and after several days of trying, we finally talked by telephone on Good Friday, at about 6:00 p.m.  His final comment to me in that conversation was, "Be down here tonight with a new piece of music written for my orchestra.  You'll conduct it in public performance; we go on at 8:00", after which he immediately hung up the phone.   I had two hours to write, copy, fly from San Francisco to Anaheim, find Disneyland and conduct his orchestra in concert, with no rehearsal! ( I had to borrow air fare from Mrs. Robinson, owner of the liquor store on the corner of Hayes and Divisadero streets, near where I lived; I was totally broadsided by Duke's marching orders, and had to scramble to make all of this happen!)

I believe that I still have a nervous condition from the stress of that one night!  Needless to say, we did not do the music that night.  I arrived after 10:00 p.m. and waited for him in the lobby of the hotel.  He walked into the lobby, asked me what had happened ?? (  "Where were you", he asked, as if he really expected me to accomplish all that in two hours !!), and then invited me up to his room, where we talked late into the night.  He interviewed me, conversing as if he had known me all of my life!  He looked at the pictures of my parents that I had brought as if, by doing so, he could learn everything that could possibly be known about them.  His depth and insight into my character, personality and general background is still a revelation in my life experience.   I wondered how he could say those things about my musical ability that he said without having heard me play a single note of music. 

He had seen me respond to his orchestra at GAMH ( where I had conducted, discreetly, from my front-table seat !... and  where Paul Gonzalves had  strolled over to me at my table and played that lush, beautiful tenor saxophone  sound right into my face!  I clowned a little bit with Paul and we had a good laugh...old hipsters, we were, for that moment!  We were later to be roommates, briefly, after Duke brought me into the orchestra).  I told Duke of my experience growing up in Boston.  At the time, I was orchestrating the music of Irving Berlin for the San Francisco Pops Orchestra and showed some of that material, and he asked me a crossroads question: "How many horns are in your band?"  My answer must have been correct.  He put me up in the hotel that night.

I wrote the music the following day, conducted it that evening (the night before Easter), leading his orchestra ( Toshiko Akioshi, the great pianist, composer and band leader, had just played "Take the 'A' Train" on the piano at intermission, at Duke's invitation.  She told me, years later, that she remembered this experience well).  Once again, since the original calling which had guided me to San Francisco from Boston, that same spiritual experience blessed and  immersed me (all of us) in its presence: It took over the entire experience of my leading Mr. Ellington's orchestra.  (I had converted a song I had written for my baby sister, Jennifer, into an arrangement that I tailored for his orchestra.)  The memory of that performance has brought increased understanding to me from that evening to the present.  His sister, Ruth, was my mentor through the years since that unbelievable, miraculous experience.  She helped me to gain deeper insight into the meaning of what had transpired ( We shared a very similar faith and similar religious beliefs ).

The band  then traveled from Disneyland to Santa Barbara to Dallas, where he told me that I was now on his "team" (!); that it was "too much for one person to do alone" (exact quote), and where he gave me my job description ( in his motel room immediately following his April 30^th concert of Sacred Music at Lovers Lane United Methodist Church . If you are reading this on my website, please see the letter of support from Dr. Stan Copeland, Pastor of LLUMC ).  Our next stop was Houston

(I had made brief trips back to S.F., between our Santa Barbara and Dallas experiences, and between our Dallas and Houston experiences).  In Houston, the band was performing at the Shamrock Hilton Hotel. I was Paul Gonzalves' roommate for a part of that stay. That is the last time I saw Mr. Ellington.  My Memoir traces these experiences.

Sometime after his passing in 1974, I flew to New York and introduced myself to his sister, Ruth.  In 1984, after having become more acquainted with her, she appointed me to conduct his Sacred Music.  From then until her own passing away in 2004, we became very close.  I learned about her family, her place in the music business, and we repeatedly revisited the meaning of my musical experience with her brother.  Since the early 1990s, I often stayed in her home when I visited New York City and became cordial with family members. Ruth and I were briefly estranged in the early '90s, but that was short-lived. We were close for the many years that she was my friend and mentor.    

In the meantime, I had also been guided, in 1968, to maestro Josef Krips, then-Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony.   He authorized me to attend his rehearsals.  For several years, I observed the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra rehearse, conducted regional orchestras, and through the mentorship of conductor, Dr. Paul Freeman, and composer, Mr. Kirke Mechem, I gained  highly valuable experience as a symphony conductor, composer and orchestrator  (please see excerpts of support letters on my website from maestro Krips, maestro Freeman and Mr. Mechem).

 In 1987, Dr. Daniel Kingman, who was music director of Sacramento's Camellia Symphony Orchestra, showed me an article by renowned cultural critic, Gary Giddins, entitled "In Search of Black Brown and Beige".  At the end of that article, Mr. Giddins indicated that "...BBB is a rich, buxom work..." which needed to have a symphonic interpretation in full-length proportion.  

 Dr. Kingman led the charge.  He called Mercer Ellington, who was delighted to take up the project.  Mercer instructed me to create the concerto-grosso orchestration of the full-length "BBB".  At his behest, and with the endorsement of Mr. Mechem (who is published by G. Schirmer) and the behind-the-scenes encouragement from the legendary music publisher and impresario, Lou Levy, G. Schirmer, Inc., music publisher and owner of the copyright of "BBB", commissioned the work from me.  Dr. Kingman invited me to guest-conduct its world premiere in February 1988, leading the Camellia Symphony and my own big band in a public concert performance. My specific instructions from Mercer were to keep Mr. Ellington's original writing for big band and to create a symphonic tapestry to blend with and unify Mr. Ellington's original writing (Duke had created new music for "BBB" in 1958, which had never been unified into his original 1943 version of the composition. Please see below.)

(To read the Sacramento Bee review of this concert, click here.)

In 1999, during the Ellington Centennial, I conducted my orchestration in its Dallas, TX premiere at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, utilizing the University of North Texas Symphony Orchestra and my Dallas big band.  G. Schirmer Inc. has been very compassionate in allowing me to pursue my hopes of presenting the professional world premier and recording / DVD in New York City.  That project is in process at this writing.

As mentioned above, Mr. Ellington's original writing is maintained throughout this full-length big band/symphonic orchestration.  Also, parts of the 1958 Columbia Records recording of "BBB", which featured Mahalia Jackson with Mr. Ellington and his Orchestra, are interpolated into the third movement of my orchestration:  these include texts from "Come Sunday" (non-existent in 1943, at the Carnegie Hall premiere) and the new composition: "The 23^rd Psalm". It is important to note that Mr. Ellington intended for this new composition to be a part of "BBB".  He never had the opportunity to unite the 1958 music with the music from the Carnegie Hall premiere. My orchestration presents Duke's original full length "BBB" with his 1958 additions to the work.

Although I was deeply saddened, disappointed and discouraged  by his passing in 1974, I was also blessed beyond all hope, subsequently, to be so strongly encouraged and endorsed by Ruth and Mercer Ellington, and because of them, to  still write for him, posthumously, and become our nation's leading interpreter of his Sacred Music. In that sense, spiritually, I was - and am - still with him... and he is still with all of us!

 I have assigned "The Blues" (2^nd movement of "BBB", from the 1943 performance), and "Come Sunday" and "The 23^rd Psalm" (3^rd movement, from the 1958 recording) to a vocal duet of soprano and bass-baritone. (If you are reading this from my website, video excerpts of my concerto grosso orchestration of "BBB" can be seen on the Video page of the site.  Also, please see Ruth Ellington's comments on the home page of the site.)

As I think back on Mr. Ellington's performances of his original "BBB" at Carnegie Hall and Boston Symphony Hall ( its actual premiere - a tryout - was at a high school in Rye, New York, shortly before the Carnegie Hall debut ), I reflect upon the time of my early musical experiences in Boston and to that Calling that led me to Mr. Ellington and to other very meaningful musical experiences. I greatly appreciate the help from many who have supported me through the decades, especially Ruth and Mercer Ellington.

 I look forward to the New York City premiere of  my concerto grosso orchestration of maestro Ellington's magnum opus, the full-length tone poem, "Black, Brown and Beige".  The source of the original Calling in my Cambridge apartment in 1964, that brought all of this to pass, is still a great mystery to me, although I understand it much more now because of the passage of time.  Because of the meaningful results of that experience, and because I now know that it is directly from God Almighty, I no longer question it.