Louisiana Blues Strut composed 2002; 3 minutes 
Blue/s Forms composed 1979; 8 minutes

American composer Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson moved with rare fluency between the classical concert hall, dance stage, jazz club, and recording studio. Named after the British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, he embraced this while carving out a voice unmistakably his own—rhythmically charged, contrapuntally alert, and rooted in Black vernacular tradition. One of his final works, Louisiana Blues Strut, is a compact virtuoso showpiece that nods to the cakewalk’s syncopated swagger while filtering it through the composer’s keen harmonic ear. The rhythms of this concert miniature strut and snap, while off-beat accents feel playful, balancing elegance with vernacular bite. 

The much earlier Blue/s Forms (1979) is a landmark for solo violin. The piece unfolds in three movements that treat the blues not as quotation but as a generative principle. In Plain Blue/s, spare, chant-like lines explore space, double-stopped sixths suggest hidden harmony and rhythm-in-waiting. Just Blue/s is more inward, its phrases hovering between lament and improvisation, while the rhythm strives to loosen and bend. Jettin’ Blue/s, on the other hand, is kinetic and virtuosic from the start, bow and rhythm taking flight, transforming blues gesture into driving concert rhetoric.