In a historic meeting of two cultures in 1963, the Duke Ellington Orchestra played three concerts in Iran. Now two San Francisco theater companies present “Isfahan Blues,” a play that imagines what ...

At a time when U.S.-Iran foreign relations are a hot-button topic in the news, two San Francisco theater companies have come together to tell a story of cross-cultural exchange between the two ...

Art and politics battle to something of a standstill in “Isfahan Blues,” the world premiere that opened Saturday in a Golden Thread/African-American Shakespeare Company co-production at the latter’s ...

1. Tourist Point of View (Ellington/Strayhorn) - 5:17 2. Bluebird of Delhi (Mynah) (Ellington/Strayhorn) - 3:17 3. Isfahan (Ellington/Strayhorn) - 4:10 4. Depk (Ellington/Strayhorn) - 2:54 5. Mount ...

Vida Ghahremani, left, and L. Peter Callender star in Isfahan Blues, about a trip that Duke Ellington (Callender) made to Iran in the 1930s. The African-American Shakespeare Company and Golden Thread ...

This short documentary by writer and archivist Ehsan Khoshbakht tells the story of Duke Ellingtons concert tour of the Middle East in 1963 and the development of one ...

When gathering material for a new recording, one time-honored rule of thumb is that it is hard to stray too far off course when revisiting the musical handiwork of renowned composer Duke Ellington and ...