Wolfram Knauer, Director of the Jazzinstutut Darmstadt, did his first appearance at an Ellington Study Group Conference in Copenhagen in 1992.
He had chosen to talk about Simulated Improvisation in Black, Brown and Beige. The presentation built on an article Dr. Knauer had published in the journal The Black Perspective in Music in 1990.
In a 1986 article, André Hodier used the term “simulated improvisation” to described an element in his compositions from the 1950s and Knauer considers that Ellington’s Black Brown and Beige is an early example of a comparable technique.
He gives several examples of this from the first part of the suite but starts his talk with some background on BB&B.
To help the audience to follow the presentation, Dr. Knauer had prepared a two-page handout, which is available here.
It is very good to have it at hand when listening to the talk.
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