The one-day festival is co-sponsored by Jazz at Lincoln Center. A non-competitive festival, it will emphasize education by providing students and directors from area high school jazz programs the opportunity to work directly with Jazz Studies faculty of the Boyer College, as well as Jazz at Lincoln Center consultants and other national jazz artist/clinicians – including faculty from the Boyer College of Music and Dance. The festival will include post-performance workshops for each band led by expert clinicians, as well as other clinics for students and directors. As a grand finale, the guest clinicians will perform in concert with the Temple University Jazz Band.

Duke Ellington’s music is at the very heart of America’s 20th-century musical heritage and the core of the rich canon of jazz music. Jazz at Lincoln Center, committed to instilling a broader understanding of this music, created the Essentially Ellington program (EE) during the 1995–96 school year to make Ellington’s music accessible to as many high school musicians as possible and to support the development of their schools’ music programs.