Conversation: Ellington 125 with Ashley Kahn & Jason Moran

Duke left us with over 1,500 compositions and thousands of recordings. It is not just the sheer enormity of his creative output that makes it so enduring, but its emotional depth. During tours of France in the 1930s, a critic wrote that Duke’s music “reveals the very secret of the cosmos;” a poet wrote that “such music is not only a new art form but a new reason for living.” It sounds as fresh today as it ever did, and worthy of a lifetime of stu...