Аннотация:The sixteenth of March, 1955, may be the most significant forgotten date in the history of American music. As New Yorkers prepared for their St. Patrick's Day festivities, the Duke Ellington Orchestra (hereafter DEO) joined forces at Carnegie Hall with the Symphony of the Air (formerly known as the NBC Symphony) in a program titled “Excursions in Jazz” that featured the works of just two composers: Ellington and Don Gillis. Gillis, a prolific composer of light music (such as his Symphony #5 ½), had been the assistant to Arturo Toscanini before the maestro's retirement from the NBC Symphony in 1954 and had helped re-form the ensemble as the Symphony of the Air (hereafter SotA). In the first half of the program, he conducted SotA in five of his own works: Bing, Bang, Bong (A Fantasy on a Trademark); Boogie in Brass; Lullaby Tango; Bobby Soxs; and A Dance Symphony (No. 8). After intermission, the Ellington orchestra came onstage; Ellington assumed Toscanini's hallowed place at the podium. The DEO and SotA then performed Ellington's Harlem and New World A-Comin', with Don Shirley as piano soloist, and premiered the three-movement composition, Night Creature. This was the first time that Ellington's three enduring works with orchestra—all scored by Luther Henderson—were performed together. In retrospect, we might term them Ellington's symphonic trifecta.
