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