photo #4970883

When Ellington and his orchestra played a concert at the Leeds Festival in England in 1958, Queen Elizabeth was taken with the music and Ellington was invited to Buckingham Palace to meet her. He told the Queen that "something musical will come from this", and so it did. He subsequently composed a suite of six songs which he dedicated to the Queen. One of them, a solo piece for the piano called A Single Petal of a Rose, was written about their meeting. Back in America, in April 1959, he recorded the set at his own expense and had only one pressing made, which he sent as a gift to the Queen.