POCATELLO — The Idaho State-Civic Symphony’s POPS concert, “Classical Ellington” is scheduled at

7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Stephens Performing Arts Center.

    The program consists of Duke Ellington’s most familiar and award-winning works arranged by NEA Jazz Master Luther Henderson, but it’s the pieces have been chosen to appeal to a wide range of musical tastes.

    The event is NOT a part of the five-concert season ticket package; tickets at $32 each are available from the ISU box office at 282-3595 or Vickers Western Stores at 237-5700.

    Ellington was the first composer to experiment with using pseudo-African effects, with strong rhythms on the tom toms and unusual harmonies, to the delight of the sophisticated New York audiences at the famous Cotton Club. He’s often called the father of jazz, but Ellington always called his music "American Music" His works meld elements of blues, gospel, stride and rag-time piano, swing dancing and classical music.

    Winton Marsalis summed it up: "His music sounds like America."

    Ellington is one of only five jazz musicians ever to have been featured on the cover of Time. He earned 12 Grammy awards (three posthumously) and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1966. Nine of his recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, as prime exemplars of music of “qualitative or historical significance.”

    He was later awarded several other prestigious prizes, including a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969, and the Legion of Honor by France in 1973 — the highest civilian honors of each country.

    His inventive use of the big band, his eloquence, and his extraordinary charisma elevated jazz to an art form on a par with other traditional genres of music.

    His popular compositions set the bar for generations of jazz, pop, theater and soundtrack composers (remember his soundtrack for “Anatomy of a Murder?”), and his work has come to be a staple not only of many a high-school band program, but also of the repertoire of numerous music conservatories, continuing to give life and voice to his music, and countless hours of enjoyment to its listeners.

    Come enjoy a memorable evening and celebrate “That Do Wah Thing” with the symphony and New York City guest artists — Jason Marshal, Mark Williams, Mike Rodriguez, Noah Jackson, Kyle Poole, Wilerm Delisfort, and Brianna Thomas as they demonstrate that they do indeed “Got that Swing.”