Ellington, Duke 1899–1974
Duke Ellington 1899–1974
Pianist, bandleader, composer
“Blew the Joint Away” at Newport
The 1960s: Musician, Historian, Lecturer
Duke Ellington was a distinctive and pivotal figure in the world of jazz. While many critics agree that his flair for style far exceeded his raw musical talent, few dispute the significance of his impact on the music scene in the United States and abroad. A prolific composer, Ellington created over two thousand pieces of music, including the standard songs “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” and “Sophisticated Lady” and longer works like Black, Brown, and Beige and The Liberian Suite. With the variously named bands he led for more than fifty years, Ellington was responsible for many innovations in the jazz field, such as the introduction of “jungle-style” musical variations and the manipulation of the human voice as an instrument—singing notes without words. During the course of his long career, Ellington was showered with many honors, including the highest civilian award granted by the United States, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which was presented to him by President Richard M. Nixon in 1969. “No one else in the… history of jazz,” concluded critic Alistair Cooke in a 1983 issue of Esquire, “created so personal an orchestral sound and so continuously expanded the jazz idiom.”
Born Edward Kennedy Ellington in Washington, D.C., on April 29,1899, “Duke” earned his nickname at an early age to suit his aristocratic demeanor. He was brought up in a cultured, middle-class household: his father made blueprints for the U.S. Navy and served as a White House butler for extra income, and his mother, who hailed from a respected Washington family, set a dignified tone for the family to follow. “Ellington’s parents lived by the ideal of Victorian gentility until they died,” noted James Lincoln Collier in Duke Ellington, “and they raised Duke to it…. The view that he was special was cut into Duke’s consciousness when he was very young…. [He] came into his teens, then, as a protected and well-loved child, growing up in an orderly household where decorous behavior was simply part of the air he breathed; he was confident in manner and sure that he had… been born to high estate.”
But Ellington matured at a time when attitudes and values were changing in America. The Harlem Renaissance—a period of heightened pride, interest, and activity in black arts and culture—was beginning to dawn. Rigid self-discipline was cast aside, and people began to indulge in the satisfaction of a variety of earthly desires. This newfound freedom to enjoy “good times,” as Collier put it, had a profound influence on American music. The syncopated rhythms of ragtime, a wildly popular precursor of jazz that flourished in the late 1800s,
At a Glance…
Born Edward Kennedy Ellington, April 29,1899, in Washington, DC; died of lung cancer, May 24, 1974, in New York City; son of James Edward (a butler, carpenter, and blueprint maker) and Daisy (Kennedy) Ellington; married Edna Thompson, July 2, 1918; children: Mercer. Education: Left high school in his senior year; later received honorary diploma.
Worked in a soda shop and as a sign painter, c. 1914–17; began playing in jazz bands, c. 1917; served as a U.S. Navy and State Department messenger during World War I; formed his first band, 1918; performed in Washington, DC and New York City during the 1920s; toured Europe in the 1930s; appeared many times at Newport Jazz Festival; concert performer and recording artist (primarily on Reprise and RCA labels) with his various bands until his death in 1974. Appeared in and/or wrote scores for films, including Check and Double Check 1930, Murder at the Vanities, 1934, Anatomy of a Murder, 1959, Paris Blues, 1961, and Assault on a Queen, 1966.
Selected awards: Spingarn Medal from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1959; Academy Award nomination for the score of Paris Blues, 1961; Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), 1966; Grammy Awards in several categories, including jazz composition and jazz performance—big band, 1966,1967,1968,1971,1972,1976, and 1979; Presidential Medal of Freedom from Richard M. Nixon, 1969; inducted into NARAS Hall of Fame, 1990; elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
gave way in the early 1900s to the blues of the Mississippi Delta area. New Orleans, Louisiana is generally regarded as the hot spot in music history where ragtime, blues, and other forms coalesced, giving birth to jazz.
But, according to Collier, “it was not until 1915, when a cadre of white musicians brought it to Chicago, that [jazz] made a significant splash. The stir it created there encouraged an entrepreneur to bring… the Original Dixieland Jazz Band to New York, where it also made a hit… [Their] records became best-sellers, and the jazz boom began.” And so the 1920s came to be known as the Jazz Age. The independent-minded Ellington fell in love with the sounds of the time. “Jazz is above all a total freedom to express oneself,” he concluded, as quoted by Stanley Dance in Peter Gammond’s Duke Ellington: His Life and Music.
A Late Bloomer
Both his father and his mother could play the piano, and Ellington was exposed to music at an early age. The Ellingtons were strongly religious and hoped that if their son learned piano he would later exchange it for the church organ, but at first he showed little interest in music. He proved to be an uncooperative student of his ironically named piano teacher—Miss Clinkscales—and managed to wrangle his way out of lessons after just a few months.
As he grew older, Ellington became interested in drawing and painting. He won a prize from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for a poster he created, and was eventually offered a scholarship to the prestigious Pratt Institute in Brooklyn to study commercial art. But a latent interest in music kept him from pursuing a career in art. According to some biographers, Ellington’s motivations to make it in the music world were far from pure: he apparently felt that he could earn more money as a bandleader than as an artist, and he noticed that pretty girls tended to flock around piano players.
Ellington lacked the self-discipline to engage in the formal study of the piano. However, he did begin to take the piano more seriously as a high school student, learning harmonies from his school’s music teacher, Henry Grant. But Ellington never really learned to read music, and he could never play a musical selection for piano on demand. Ellington’s son, Mercer, was quoted in Collier’s Duke Ellington as having said: “The greater part of his knowledge was self-taught, by ear, and gradually acquired.” Collier suggested that Duke’s pride and stubbornness were at the root of his roundabout musical education. “This was the hard way of doing it, but it was the way [he] preferred, even if it would take him more time and cost him more energy.”
Despite his unorthodox training, Ellington achieved the power to leave an audience spellbound. In an essay dated September 1957 in Duke Ellington: His Life and Music, Hughues Panassié noted, “Duke might not be one of the most agile or brilliant technicians of the keyboard, but what a great stylist he is!… He [puts] so much of his own spirit into the band… He is an outstanding creator who puts all that is humanly possible into the greatest of jazz orchestras.”
Formed His Own Band
Around 1914, while working after school in a soda shop, Ellington wrote his first jazz song, “Soda Fountain Rag.” He later dropped out of school to pursue his musical career, playing in jazz bands by night and supplementing his income by painting signs during the day. Often he managed to persuade club owners to let him paint the signs announcing the group’s engagement. Around the same time, Ellington married schoolmate Edna Thompson, who had become pregnant with their son, Mercer.
Influenced by the style of earlier jazz artist Doc Perry, Ellington continued to work on his piano playing and, after the end of World War I, formed his own band. Critics contend that it was his band, rather than his piano, that was his true instrument. He composed not so much with a particular instrument in mind, but rather thinking of the current band member who played that instrument, suiting the music to the style of the player. The turnover rate in Ellington’s band was not high, but due to the band’s longevity many musicians and singers played with Ellington over the years, among them: saxophonists “Toby” Otto Hardwick, Harry Carney, Johnny Hodges, and Paul Gonsalves; trumpeters Artie Whetsol, Bubber Miley, and Cootie Williams; banjo players Elmer Snowden and Sterling Conaway; drummer “Sonny” William Greer; clarinet and sax player Barney Bigard; bass player Wellman Braud; trombonist Joe Nanton; vocalist Adelaide Hall; and pianist-composer Billy Strayhorn.
Ellington and his band, then known as the Washingtonians, began playing local clubs and parties in Washington, D.C., but during the early 1920s moved to New York City, where they secured steady work at the midtown Kentucky Club and, later, a three-year engagement at the popular Cotton Club. His notable compositions during this period included “Black and Tan Fantasy” and “Love Creole,” both of which became jazz standards.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Ellington branched out into writing musical revues, such as Chocolate Kiddies, a success in Germany; playing in Broadway musicals, such as Florenz Ziegfeld’s 1929 Show Girl; and appearing with his band in motion pictures, including the 1930 Amos and Andy feature Check and Double Check. Ellington’s 1931 long piece, titled Creole Rhapsody, offered “confirmation of [his] emergence as a major composer,” according to Collier. He soon added to the band’s popularity with the legendary cuts “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” and “Sophisticated Lady.”
Throughout the 1930s, Ellington also played the hot, primitive sounds of so-called “jungle music” and began experimenting with the infusion of Latin American elements into jazz. In 1939 Strayhorn joined Ellington’s band, beginning a composition partnership that would last until the former’s death in 1967. Strayhorn is perhaps best known for writing the band’s theme, “Take the ‘A’ Train.” The band’s horizons expanded geographically in the 1930s as well—Ellington was well received on tours throughout the United States and in Europe.
In 1943 Ellington helped set up an annual jazz concert series at New York City’s Carnegie Hall that lasted until 1955. Ellington was deeply involved with it each year and used the event to premier new, longer works of jazz that he composed. For the first concert, he introduced Black, Brown, and Beige, a piece in three sections that represented symphonically the story of blacks in the United States. “Black” concerned people of color at work and at prayer, “Brown” celebrated black soldiers who fought in American wars, and “Beige” depicted the African American music of Harlem. Other Carnegie Hall debuts included New World a-Comin’, about a black revolution to come after the end of World War II, and Liberian Suite, commissioned by the government of Liberia to honor its centennial.
“Blew the Joint Away” at Newport
The band’s triumph at the Newport Jazz Festival of 1956 did much to broaden Ellington’s audience. That year, Ellington’s band was set to close the bill on the night of July 7th. Due to delayed starting times for earlier acts, the group did not take the stage until 11:45 p.m.—just 15 minutes before the concert was scheduled to end. Some members of the audience were already starting to leave. After performing an elaborate suite and a few standard works, Ellington led the band into “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue,” highlighted by the improvisations of tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves.
The piece brought listeners to their feet. “It was solid jazz, blazing hot,” proclaimed Collier. “Four men went out and played… for six minutes and blew the joint away…. [The audience was] shaken by the music, and those who were there would never forget it…. Within weeks Ellington’s picture was on the cover of Time. The record of the Newport concert sold in the hundreds of thousands and became Ellington’s biggest seller.”
The 1960s: Musician, Historian, Lecturer
Ellington continued to compose throughout the 1960s, writing scores for various motion pictures and garnering an Academy Award nomination for the score of the 1961 film Paris Blues, which featured Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier as lovestruck musicians in Paris. Two years later, Ellington was appointed by President John F. Kennedy’s Cultural Committee to represent the United States on a State Department-sponsored tour of the East, including Syria, Jordan, Afghanistan, India, Ceylon, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. Aside from performing in concert on the tour, Ellington lectured on the history of jazz, famous jazz musicians, and the state of American race relations.
During the mid-1960s Ellington and his band, ever innovative, started to perform jazz-style sacred-music concerts in large cathedrals throughout the world. The first was in San Francisco’s Grace Episcopal Cathedral in 1965 and included In the Beginning God. Ellington featured another lineup of sacred songs at his 1968 concert in New York City’s Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine and went on to perform at St. Sulpice in Paris, Santa Maria del Mar in Barcelona, and Westminster Abbey in London.
Duke Ellington was active as a performer and composer until his death from lung cancer on May 24, 1974, in New York City. His compositions such as “Mood Indigo” and “In a Sentimental Mood” remain jazz standards more than half a century after their introduction. Following Ellington’s death, his son, Mercer, who had been serving as the band’s business manager and trumpet player, took over its leadership. But as Phyl Garland, writing in Ebony magazine, put it, the elder Ellington will always be remembered for “the daring innovations that came to mark his music—the strange modulations built upon lush melodies that ramble into unexpected places; the unorthodox construction of songs…; the bold use of dissonance in advance of the time.”
Selected compositions
Shorter works
“Black and Tan Fantasy,” 1927.
“Creole Love Call,” 1927.
“Hot and Bothered,” 1928.
“Mood Indigo,” 1931.
“It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” 1932.
“Sophisticated Lady,” 1933.
“Drop Me Off at Harlem,” 1933.
“In a Sentimental Mood,” 1935.
“Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue,” 1937.
“Caravan,” 1937.
“Empty Ballroom Blues,” 1938.
“Concerto for Cootie,” 1939.
Other compositions include “Soda Fountain Rag,” “Solitude,” “I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good,” “When a Black Man’s Blue,” “Rockin’ in Rhythm,” and “The Blues Is Waitin’.”
Longer works
Creole Rhapsody, 1931.
Black, Brown, and Beige, 1943.
New World a-Comin’, 1945.
The Deep South Suite, 1946.
The Liberian Suite, 1947.
The Tattooed Bride, 1948.
Harlem, 1950.
Night Creature, 1955.
Festival Suite, 1956.
My People, 1963.
The Far East Suite, 1964.
Selected discography
Afro-Bossa, Reprise, 1963.
Happy Reunion (recorded 1957–1958), Sony, 1991.
At Newport, Columbia House Legends of Jazz Program, 1993.
The Beginning (recorded 1926–1928), Decca.
The Best of Duke Ellington, Capitol.
(With the Boston Pops) Duke at Tanglewood, RCA.
Early Ellington, Everest Archives.
The Ellington Era (two volumes), Columbia.
Fantasies, Harmony.
Hot in Harlem (recorded 1928–1929), Decca.
The Indispensable Duke Ellington, RCA.
In My Solitude, Harmony.
Sources
Books
Collier, James Lincoln, Duke Ellington, Oxford University Press, 1987.
Dance, Stanley, The World of Duke Ellington, Da Capo, 1980.
Ellington, Duke, Music Is My Mistress, Doubleday, 1973.
Ellington, Mercer, and Stanley Dance, Duke Ellington in Person, Houghton Mifflin, 1978.
Frankl, Ron, Duke Ellington, Chelsea House, 1988.
Gammond, Peter, editor, Duke Ellington: His Life and Music, Da Capo, 1977.
Jewell, Derek, Duke: A Portrait of Duke Ellington, Norton, 1977.
Rattenbury, Ken, Duke Ellington: Jazz Composer, Yale University Press, 1991.
Periodicals
Crisis, January 1982.
Ebony, July 1969, p. 29.
Esquire, December 1983.
Newsweek, May 12, 1969.
New York Times Magazine, September 12,1965, p. 64.
Progressive, August 1982.
Reader’s Digest, November 1969, p. 108.
A permanent exhibit titled Duke Ellington: American Musician was installed at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History, Washington, DC, in the late 1980s; a larger exhibit, Beyond Category: The Musical Genius of Duke Ellington, was scheduled for display at the Museum of American History from April through September of 1993 before traveling throughout the United States.
—Elizabeth Wenning and Barbara Carlisle Bigelow
Ellington, Duke
Duke Ellington
Bandleader, composer, pianist
Duke Ellington was eulogized as “the supreme jazz talent of the past fifty years” by critic Alistair Cooke in a 1983 issue of Esquire. A prolific composer, Ellington created over two thousand pieces of music, including the standard songs “Take the A-Train” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” and the longer works Black, Brown, and Beige, Liberian Suite, and Afro-Eurasian Eclipse. With the variously named bands he led from 1919 until his death in 1974, Ellington was responsible for many innovations in the jazz field, such as “jungle-style” use of the growl and plunger, and the manipulation of the human voice as an instrument—singing notes without words. During the course of his long career, Ellington was showered with many honors, including the highest civilian award granted by the United States, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which was presented to him by President Richard M. Nixon in 1969. “No one else,” concluded Cooke, “in the eighty-or ninety-year history of jazz, created so personal an orchestral sound and so continuously expanded the jazz idiom.”
Born Edward Kennedy Ellington in Washington, D.C., on April 29, 1899, to a middle-class black family, he was exposed to music at an early age. Both his father—who made blueprints for the navy and served as a White House butler—and his mother could play the piano. The Ellingtons were strongly religious and hoped that if their son learned piano he would later exchange it for the church organ, but at first he was uncooperative. At the age of six young Ellington labeled his piano teacher “Miss Clinkscales” and, according to Esquire, “was her poorest pupil,” the only child to forget his part in her yearly piano recital. As he grew older Ellington became interested in drawing and painting, and won a prize from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for a poster he created, but continued his music lessons because he noticed that pretty girls tended to flock around piano players.
Ellington began to take the piano more seriously as a high-school student and learned much from his school’s music teacher, Henry Grant. When he was fifteen Ellington worked after school in a soda shop; the experience led him to write his first jazz song, “Soda Fountain Rag.” At about this time, he also acquired the nickname Duke. There are many stories explaining how Ellington obtained the moniker, but the most prevalent says that he had a young, elegant, social-climbing friend who felt that admission into his circle demanded that Ellington have a noble title, and the label stuck. Ellington dropped out of high school to pursue his musical career, playing in jazz bands by night and supplementing his income by painting signs during the
For the Record…
Full name Edward Kennedy Ellington; born April 29, 1899, in Washington, D.C.; died May 24, 1974; son of James Edward (a butler, carpenter, and blueprint maker) and Daisy (Kennedy) Ellington; married Edna Thompson, July 2, 1918 (separated); children: Mercer. Education: High-school dropout.
Worked in a soda shop and as a sign painter in his youth; began playing in jazz bands c. 1917; served as a U.S. Navy and State Department messenger during World War I; began leading his own band c. 1919; performed in Washington, D.C., and New York City during the 1920s, and various other cities throughout the world beginning in the 1930s; concert performer and recording artist with his various bands until his death of cancer in 1974. Appeared in and/or wrote scores for films, including Check and Double Check, 1930, Anatomy of a Murder, Paris Blues, and Assault on a Queen.
Awards: Received numerous awards, including the French Legion of Honor, the President’s Gold Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, several Grammys, an Academy Award nomination for the score of Paris Blues.
day. Often he managed to persuade club owners to let him paint the signs announcing the group’s engagement.
Influenced by the style of earlier jazz artist Doc Perry, Ellington continued to work on his piano playing and, after the end of World War I, formed his own band. Critics note that it was his band, rather than his piano, that was his true instrument. He composed, not so much with a particular instrument in mind, but rather thinking of the current band member who played that instrument, suiting the music to the style of the player. Though the turnover rate in Ellington’s band was not high, due to the band’s longevity many musicians and singers played with Ellington over the years: Toby Hardwick, Elmer Snowden, William Greer, Barney Bigard, Wellman Braud, Harry Carney, Johnny Hodges, Bubber Miley, Joe Nanton, Cootie Williams, Adelaide Hall, and Billy Strayhorn are among the more notable. Ellington and his band began playing local clubs and parties in Washington, D.C., during the early 1920s, but soon moved to New York City, where they secured a three-year engagement at the popular Cotton Club.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Ellington branched out into writing musical revues, such as Chocolate Kiddies, a success in Germany; playing in Broadway musicals, such as the 1929 Show Girl; and appearing with his band in motion pictures, such as the 1930 Amos and Andy feature Check and Double Check. Later Ellington composed scores for films and was nominated for an Academy Award for the music of Paris Blues (1961). But during the 1930s he was also experimenting with the infusion of Latin American elements into jazz; perhaps the most famous example of this work is his “Caravan.” In 1939 Strayhorn joined Ellington’s band, beginning a composition partnership that lasted until Strayhorn’s death in 1967. The band’s horizons expanded geographically in the 1930s as well—Ellington on tour was well received not only by audiences throughout the United States, but also in Europe.
In 1943 Ellington helped set up an annual jazz concert series at New York City’s Carnegie Hall. The series lasted until 1955, and Ellington was deeply involved with it each year. He used the yearly event to premiere new, longer works of jazz that he composed. For the first concert, Ellington introduced Black, Brown, and Beige, a piece in three sections that represented symphonically the story of blacks in the United States.
“Black” concerned black people at work and at prayer, “Brown” celebrated black soldiers who fought in the American Revolution, and “Beige” depicted the black music of Harlem. Other Carnegie Hall debuts included New World a-Comin’, about a black revolution to come after the end of World War II, Liberian Suite, commissioned by the government of Liberia to honor its centennial, The Tattooed Bride, and Night Creature.
During the mid 1960s Ellington and his band, ever innovative, started to perform jazz-style sacred-music concerts in large cathedrals throughout the world. The first was in San Francisco’s Grace Episcopal Cathedral in 1965 and included In the Beginning God. He featured different songs at his 1968 concert in New York City’s Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Ellington also presented his sacred music at St. Sulpice in Paris, Santa Maria del Mar in Barcelona, and Westminster Abbey in London.
Duke Ellington was active as a performer and composer until his death of lung cancer on May 24, 1974, in New York City. Though his audiences constantly demanded such old standards as “Mood Indigo” and “In a Sentimental Mood,” Ellington preferred to look ahead and develop new songs for his band. One of his last was “The Blues Is Waitin’.” After his death, his only son, Mercer Ellington, who had been serving as the band’s business manager and trumpet player, took over its leadership. But Ellington will always be remembered, in the words of Phyl Garland in Ebony magazine, for “the daring innovations that [marked] his music—the strange modulations built upon lush melodies that ramble into unexpected places; the unorthodox construction of songs … [and] the bold use of dissonance in advance of the time.”
Selected discography
Shorter works; recorded primarily on Reprise and RCA
“Black and Tan Fantasy,” 1927.
“East St. Louis Toodle-Oo,” 1927.
“Creole Love Call,” 1927.
“Hot and Bothered,” 1928.
“Mood Indigo,” 1931.
“It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” 1932.
“Sophisticated Lady,” 1933.
“Drop Me Off at Harlem,” 1933.
“In a Sentimental Mood,” 1935.
“Caravan,” 1937.
“Empty Ballroom Blues,” 1938.
“Concerto for Cootie,” 1939.
Also recorded “Soda Fountain Rag,” “Take the A-Train,” “Solitude,” “I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good,” “When a Black Man’s Blue,” “Rockin’ in Rhythm,” and “The Blues Is Waitin’.”
Longer works; recorded primarily on Reprise and RCA
Creole Rhapsody, 1931.
Reminiscing in Tempo, 1935.
Black, Brown, and Beige, 1943.
New World a-Comin’, 1943.
The Deep South Suite, 1946.
Liberian Suite, 1947.
The Tattooed Bride, 1948.
Harlem, 1951.
Night Creature, 1955.
Festival Suite, 1956.
Suite Thursday, 1960.
My People, 1963.
Golden Broom, 1964.
Green Apple, 1964.
In the Beginning God, 1965.
The River, 1970.
Afro-Eurasian Eclipse, 1970.
Toga Brava, 1973.
Also recorded Shakespearian Suite, The Far East Suite, and New Orleans Suite.
Sources
Books
Ellington, Duke, Music Is My Mistress, Doubleday, 1973.
Jewell, Derek, Duke: A Portrait of Duke Ellington, Norton, 1977.
Periodicals
The Crisis, January, 1982.
Ebony, July, 1969.
Esquire, December, 1983.
The Progressive, August, 1982.
—Elizabeth Thomas
Ellington, Duke
Duke Ellington
Born: April 29, 1899
Washington, D.C.
Died: May 24, 1974
New York, New York
African American composer, band leader, and pianist
Duke Ellington is considered by many to be one of America's most brilliant jazz composers (writers of music) of the twentieth century. Ellington's classics include "Don't Get Around Much Anymore," "Mood Indigo," and "I Let a Song Get Out of My Head."
Early life and career
On April 29, 1899, Edward Kennedy Ellington was born in Washington, D.C., to James Edward and Daisy Ellington. With his father, a Methodist, and his mother, a Baptist, Ellington's upbringing had strong religious influences. An artistic child, Ellington passed up an art scholarship to study at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, in order to devote his time to his first love: music, specifically the piano. By the age of fourteen, Ellington had written his first two pieces, "Soda Fountain Rag" and "What You Gonna Do When the Bed Breaks Down?" During this time Ellington gained his nickname, "Duke," after a friend recommended that Ellington should have some sort of title.
He divided his studies between music and commercial art, and by 1918 established a reputation as a bandleader and agent. In 1923 he went to New York City and soon became a successful bandleader. In 1927 he secured an important engagement at the Cotton Club in Harlem, a section of New York City, and remained there (aside from occasional tours) until 1932.
Ellington's band made its first European trip in 1932. After World War II (1939–45), the band toured Europe regularly, with short trips to South America, the Far East, and Australia. One peak period for the band was from 1939 to 1942, when many critics considered its performances superior to any other jazz ensemble (group).
Duke's music
As a composer Ellington was responsible for numerous works that achieved popular success, some written with his band members and with his co-arranger Billy Strayhorn. The Duke's most significant music was written specifically for his own band and soloists. Always sensitive to the nuances (small variations) of tone of his soloists (single performers), Ellington wrote features for individual sidemen and used his knowledge of their characteristic sounds when composing other works. His arrangements achieved a remarkable blend of individual and ensemble contributions. However, because most of his works were written for his own band, interpretations by others have rarely been satisfactory.
With Creole Rhapsody (1931) and Reminiscing in Tempo (1935) Ellington was the first jazz composer to break the three-minute time limitation of the 78-rpm record. After the 1940s he concentrated more on longer works, including several suites (arrangements of music) built around a central theme, frequently an aspect of African American life. Always a fine orchestral pianist, with a style influenced by the Harlem stylists of the 1920s, Ellington remained in the background on most of his early recordings. After the 1950s he emerged as a highly imaginative piano soloist.
Duke's legacy
Ellington was the recipient of numerous Grammy Awards throughout his career, and in 1959 he was awarded the Springarn Medal from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1964. The city of New York gave him a prize and Yale University awarded him a doctor of music degree in 1967; Morgan State and Washington universities also gave him honorary degrees that year. On his seventieth birthday Ellington was honored by President Richard Nixon (1913–1994) at a White House ceremony and was given the Medal of Freedom. In 1970 he was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
Ellington continued to compose and perform until his death from lung cancer on May 24, 1974, in New York City. His band, headed by his son Mercer, survived him, but as Phyl Garland of Ebony magazine writes, the elder Ellington will always be remembered for "the daring innovations that came to mark his music—the strange modulations (changing from one key to another) built upon lush melodies that ramble into unexpected places, the unorthodox (untraditional) construction of songs.…"
Ellington's legacy is that he remains one of the greatest talents in all of jazz, a remarkable feat considering the history of jazz is packed with legendary names. His influence over musicians is as important today as it was during Ellington's time.
For More Information
Ellington, Edward Kennedy. Music is My Mistress. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1973, revised edition 1989.
Hasse, John Edward. Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
Lawrence, A. H. Duke Ellington and His World: A Biography. New York: Schirmer Books, 1999.
Nicholson, Stuart. Reminiscing in Tempo: A Portrait of Duke Ellington. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1999.
Ellington, Duke
ELLINGTON, DUKE
Bandleader and composer Edward Kennedy Ellington (April 29, 1899–May 24, 1974) was born in Washington, D.C., of middle-class parents. Young Ellington's dignified bearing earned him the nickname "Duke." Drawn in his teens to ragtime piano, he began to play for money and to compose. At nineteen, married with an infant son, Ellington organized a band that included the drummer Sonny Greer, saxophonist Toby Hardwick, and trumpeter Arthur Whetsol. In 1923 they moved to New York City and worked in Harlem nightclubs. Assuming leadership, Ellington added the trumpeter Bubber Miley and studied with the veteran composers Will Vodery and Will Marion Cook. He also gained an able white manager, Irving Mills. The orchestra made its first recordings in 1926, and the following year began its residence at Harlem's exclusive Cotton Club.
Ellington continued to build his band, hiring the clarinetist Barney Bigard, trombonist Sam Nanton, and saxophonist Johnny Hodges. Their work in the Cotton Club's famed "jungle revues" helped to publicize Ellington's increasingly innovative recorded compositions. These numbers cannily exploited his soloists' distinctive sounds and blended them in harmonically striking ensemble passages. Hodges, Greer, Nanton, and some later recruits remained with Ellington for decades, allowing him to mold his band into a unique "instrument." The orchestra was a Harlem institution, performing at fundraisers for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and at other community functions, and Ellington became Harlem's self-styled musical chronicler and spokesman. His band soon gained a national radio audience, and in 1931 he joined an African-American delegation that met with President Herbert Hoover.
Ellington left the Cotton Club that year. After classical musicians compared his compositions favorably to those of the French Impressionists, he began to create extended concert works, including Creole Rhapsody and Reminiscing in Tempo. Wildly successful European tours also stimulated this work, but his success continued to lie with popular dance numbers and ballads. Some of them, such as "Concerto for Cootie" (written for the trumpeter Cootie Williams), showcased his soloists, while others (such as "Take the A Train") were written by Billy Strayhorn, a young arranger who quickly became indispensable to Ellington. Despite Ellington's popularity as a leader, composer, and pianist, he had to contend with society's racism and with discrimination in the music business. He valued Mills's assistance, but the latter also demanded a share of writing credit and royalties from Ellington's songs, and in 1939 the two parted ways. At great expense Ellington used a private railroad car for his constant touring (to avoid segregated accommodations) and established his own music publishing company. He was outspoken in interviews and occasional written pieces about the burdens of prejudice, and he remained dedicated to celebrating the black experience in music.
The saxophonist Ben Webster and the bassist Jimmy Blanton augmented the great band of the late 1930s, resulting in what are generally regarded as its finest recordings (1939–1941). Ellington's personnel choices and extraordinary compositions of the 1930s were the foundation for the rest of his career, which, despite uneven commercial fortunes, produced an astonishing body of concert and popular works and achieved worldwide fame and respect.
See Also: ANDERSON, MARIAN; BIG BAND MUSIC; HOLIDAY, BILLIE; JAZZ; MUSIC.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Collier, James Lincoln. Duke Ellington. 1987.
Ellington, Edward Kennedy. Music Is My Mistress. 1973.
Hasse, John Edward. Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington. 1993.
Peretti, Burton W. The Creation of Jazz: Music, Race, and Culture in Urban America. 1992.
Tucker, Mark. Ellington: The Early Years. 1991.
Burton W. Peretti
Ellington, Duke
Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington composed more than two thousand pieces of music over the course of his fifty-five-year career. Although he was known primarily as a jazz musician, his scores include sacred music and incidental music (songs composed specifically for drama or movies ).
Most of his music was written for his own bands, which he led from 1918 until his death. Ellington and his musicians introduced features such as the growl (when a trumpeter uses his voice while playing to make the instrument “growl”) and the use of mutes and plungers to change a trumpet's tone, and he used the human voice as an instrument by having people sing without using words. Ellington has been called the greatest single talent in the history of jazz.
Middle-class childhood
Duke was a nickname; the musician was born as Edward Kennedy Ellington on April 29, 1899. His father made blueprints for the U.S. Navy but worked nights as a butler so he could provide his two children and wife with a comfortable life.
Ellington learned to play piano at an early age. When he was seven, his piano teacher refused to keep him as a pupil because she did not appreciate the way he experimented with off-tone chords. By the time he was in high school, he was studying the piano seriously with a teacher who recognized his natural ability.
Ellington dropped out of school his senior year to play with jazz bands; he supported himself by painting commercial signs. He formed his own band, Duke's Serenaders, in 1918. He married that same year. The union would end before long, but it resulted in the birth of Mercer Ellington (1919–1996), later a famous trumpeter.
Ellington moved his band to New York in 1923, where they played mainly in Harlem clubs. In 1927, they began a five-year engagement at the Cotton Club, a highly popular night spot. Their performances were broadcast live over the radio, and Ellington's music found its way into American homes and hearts.
Ellington and his band traveled to Europe twice during the 1930s. One of his most popular songs of the era was “It Don’t Mean a Thing.” The band also performed in many films during that decade. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Ellington composed and conducted jazz concerts at the famous Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Ellington received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 on his seventieth birthday.