This is it. This is everything I would hope jazz in the twenty-first century might be: the classical forms of the music, the charts themselves even, an inspiration for new generations of young musicians, a departure point from which they can then make their own way.
I read some while ago on Sebastian Scotney’s excellent London Jazz site that Peter Edwards, Musical Director of The Tomorrow’s Warriors Jazz Orchestra has the ambition to perform Duke Ellington’s Queen Suite for Queen Elizabeth II herself. It was written for HM The Queen fifty years ago last year (my earlier post on the subject is here). Ellington had the recording pressed privately and sent as a gift to the Queen. He never performed the suite for her. The ambitions of Tomorrow’s Warriors – should they be realized – means the circle will be completed.
Updates on the project can be received from the site dedicated to this new incarnation of The Queen’s Suite here.
There is an appeal at the moment for funds to complete a film by Corine Dhondee about the project. This is the trailer for that film. It has made my day.
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