Experience live in concert, Orbert Davis' Emmy Award winning score to DuSable to Obama: Chicago’s Black Metropolis—a critically acclaimed documentary that first aired on WTTW in 2010.

Through the voices of its leading citizens, scholars, artists, politicians, and business leaders, DuSable to Obama: Chicago's Black Metropolis explores the history of Chicago's black community from 1779 to present day. Moments of triumph and challenge are told, as the unsung heroisms of everyday men and women are celebrated.

Composed by Chicago Jazz Philharmonic Co-Founder and Artistic Director Orbert Davis, the film's acclaimed score evokes particular periods in Chicago's history: the ragtime rhythms of the early 20th Century; the big-band swing of the 1930s and '40s; the modal jazz experiments of the civil rights era and more.

If there's a central message to both the film and the score, it's that the history of Chicago and of black Chicago are intertwined – one does not exist without the other.

Witness this history come to life through the sounds of Orbert Davis and Chicago Jazz Philharmonic this Black History Month.

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Chicago Jazz Philharmonic is dedicated to removing barriers to access to the arts - that's why we are charging just $1.00 per ticket.

This is the final production of a three-concert partnership with the Kehrein Center for the Arts in Chicago's Austin neighborhood. Opened in 2019, the partnership aims to help realize the Kehrein Center’s goal of becoming a cultural home on Chicago’s West Side.