Duke Ellington / by Neil Saidi & Bastien Brison

*19h30 & 21h30* A major figure in jazz history, Duke Ellington profoundly transformed the music of the twentieth century. A composer of exceptional inventiveness, pianist, and bandleader, he built over more than half a century an immense body of work, liberated from the boundaries between popular and art music. His path is also inseparable from the political and cultural history of the United States. Emerging in the artistic ferment of the Harlem Renaissance, Ellington established himself at the heart of a segregationist America, where Black artists had to fight for recognition of their art and humanity. Without adopting traditional forms of political activism, he made musical creation a space of affirmation, freedom, and representation of the African-American experience. A work like *Black, Brown and Beige*, a vast fresco devoted to Black American history, bears witness to this ambition. On 21 and 22 December, saxophonist Neil Saidi and pianist Bastien Brison gather a quartet to revisit this music and explore all its richness. Rather than freezing the repertoire in tribute, they offer a personal interpretation, attuned to the spirit of Ellington as much as to the space left for improvisation. **Neil Saidi** / tenor saxophone **Bastien Brison** / piano **Tom Guillois** / double bass **TBC** / drums