'Happy birthday Duke!' tribute concert at DVHS

MILFORD — The Joseph Boga Octet will swing some of Duke Ellington's greatest hits with help from the jazz bands at Delaware Valley.
The Delaware Valley Middle School and High School jazz bands under Lance Rauh and the Keystone College Jazz Combo will also perform at the tribute "Happy Birthday Duke!" in late April.
Born April 29, 1899, Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington led the greatest of the big bands during the Swing Era and introduced many of America's classic tunes, including "Take the A Train," "Satin Doll," "Sophisticated Lady," "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got that Swing) — the list goes on and on. Almost everyone knows these melodies, but here are three things most people don't know:
Many Ellington hits, like "A Train," were written or co-written by Billy Strayhorn, a gay musician with classical music training who mostly stayed below the radar.
Ellington was a prime mover in transforming jazz from earthy dance music to music so sophisticated, people were happy to just sit still and listen.
It was usually other musicians who put lyrics to the Duke's music. Ellington was an instrumentalist at heart. However, he was never showy about his own piano playing. His instrument, he said, was his orchestra.
Joseph Boga studied at Juilliard with Wynton Marsalis, among others. When not leading his own octet, he has performed with Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks, The Wycliffe Gordon Septet, The Wynton Marsalis Quartet, and other top ensembles. He has composed for strings as well as brass, and won Juilliard's Billy Strayhorn Scholarship.
DVHS musical director Lance Rauh is a composer himself, and the school itself has nurtured a number of professional musicians. The Keystone College Jazz Combo features students at the college's Jazz Institute, based in Scranton.
Concert producer Kindred Spirits Arts Programs is a nonprofit organization of volunteers that has been bringing quality entertainment to area audiences and programs to school students since 2002.