Musical Portraits of Harlem

For decades Harlem was the capital of African-American culture in the United States, and it inspired all sorts of musical tributes, from celebratory and sensationalistic swing songs to extended concert works by James P. Johnson, Benny Carter and Duke Ellington. “Portraits of Harlem" includes rare broadcast excerpts of Johnson's Harlem Symphony, the complete 1963 recording of Ellington's A Tone Parallel to Harlem with the Paris Symphony Orchestra, and the “Sunday Morning" movement of Carter's Harlem Renaissance suite, as well as Cab Calloway's insinuating “The Man From Harlem" and trumpeter Roy Eldridge's elegaic “I Remember Harlem." John Howland, author of the recent book “Ellington Uptown: Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson and the Birth of Concert Jazz" is a guest on the program.