Aesthetic Realism Explains The Beauty Of Duke Ellington at Aesthetic Realism Foundation

Award-winning composer Edward Green will present—with vivid musical examples—“Aesthetic Realism Explains the Beauty of Duke Ellington”! April 29th is Ellington’s birthday, and Dr. Green will explain why Duke Ellington’s works truly matter--in music history, and for the lives of people right now! He’ll speak on Harlem Air Shaft, The Mooche, Black & Tan Fantasy, and more. And he’ll show: Aesthetic Realism, the philosophy founded by Eli Siegel, explains what makes them beautiful. “All beauty,” stated Mr. Siegel, “is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.” Dr. Green says: ...

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Award-winning composer Edward Green will present—with vivid musical examples—“Aesthetic Realism Explains the Beauty of Duke Ellington”! April 29th is Ellington’s birthday, and Dr. Green will explain why Duke Ellington’s works truly matter--in music history, and for the lives of people right now! He’ll speak on Harlem Air Shaft, The Mooche, Black & Tan Fantasy, and more. And he’ll show: Aesthetic Realism, the philosophy founded by Eli Siegel, explains what makes them beautiful. “All beauty,” stated Mr. Siegel, “is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.” Dr. Green says:
“I love Duke Ellington, and the reason why is how, in his music, sound as gutsy, direct, raw, and rough is at one with sound that’s subtle, delicate, and profoundly thought-through. He is earthy, and he is elegantly sophisticated.
“And we hear what I learned from Eli Siegel are the opposites which comprise the very essence of jazz: agreement and contradiction—or, Yes and No! In terms of our emotions, Yes and No, he explained, are the most primal things in us.”

Dr. Green is editor of The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington, for which he wrote a definitive introduction. He is a professor at Manhattan School of Music, and has spoken on Ellington both in the US and abroad, including at the Museum of the City of New York and the Conservatorio di Musica, Bologna.
A reception with light refreshments will follow.

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