DUKE ELLINGTON COMMUNICATES
BEYOND CATEGORY

In this world we presume many ambitions. We make many observations such as (a) everyone's aloneness (there really are no categories, you know. Everyone is so alone — the basic, essential state of humankind); (b) the paradox that is communication — the built-in answer to that feeling of aloneness.

Communication itself is what baffles the multitude. It is both so difficult and so simple. Of all men's fears, I think that men are most afraid of being what they are — in direct communication with the world at large. They fear reprisals, the most personal of which is that they "won't be understood."

. . . Yet, every time God's children have thrown away fear in pursuit of honesty — trying to communicate themselves, understood or not -- miracles have happened.

— Excerpt from Program Note for "A Concert of Sacred Music" (1965)

Duke Ellington Komunikas ‘Preter Kategorio’
(Esperanto translation)

Duke Ellington: "We, Too, Sing 'America'"

“Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam” by Heinrich Heine with English translations

Black Studies, Music, America vs Europe

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Uploaded 13 June 2001

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