Duke Ellington

Happy Birthday, Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington 1899-1974...Ellington's childhood was a comfortable one filled with music and refinement seldom available to the African American community of the day. His mother Daisy arranged piano lessons for her young son and surrounded him with her elegant sisters and friends who taught him manners and comportment. His father made blue prints for the Navy and occasionally worked in his family's catering business so food was always available on a well set table.  Ellington's childhood friends noticed his easy charm and dapper ways and gave him the nickname "Duke".

As a teen he created his first compositions but played them from memory because he couldn't read or write music.  Clandestine visits to a local pool hall at the age of 14 where rag time pianists provided the entertainment rekindled his interest in piano and he began to study music seriously with  local Washington, D.C. bandleader Oliver Perry (he would later take lessons from Will Marion Cooke, Fats Waller and Sidney Bechet in New York). He started playing gigs in and around D.C. at the age of 17, turning down an art scholarship to Pratt University to continue pursuing music.

Ellington became a popular pianist on the local scene, first with other ensembles and then with a group of his own.  The band was popular with both black and white audiences, which was unusual for the times, and Ellington was able to buy a house of his own. When his drummer Sonny Greer was invited to join the Wilbur Sweatman Orchestra both young men made the leap into the burgeoning, competitive Harlem arts scene. After a rough start Ellington landed a four year engagement at the Hollywood Club with Elmer Snowden's band in 1923 where he would meet Bubber Miley. Ellington took over the band a year later and renamed it the Washingtonians. After a fire at the club it was reopened as the Club Kentucky and Ellington debuted his new distinctive arrangements, greatly influenced  by the growls, squeals and wah-wahs of Bubber Miley's trumpet. It was dubbed "Jungle Music" and when King Oliver turned down a permanent position at the Cotton Club, Ellington jumped at the chance to showcase his sound as the house band.

With a live radio broadcast from the Cotton Club, Ellington's band was a huge success. White audiences flocked to hear him and his recordings made at that time were a big hit, especially "Creole Love Song" with Adelaide Hall vocalizing the tune which became an international sensation. Ellington and his band played all of the music for the musical revues, the lyrics written by Dorothy Fields and music by Jimmy McHugh with some of Ellington's original tunes mixed in. Besides playing at the Cotton Club, the band recorded on nearly every label and played on Broadway, with the Ziegfeld Follies, in a short film called "Black and Tan" and with Maurice Chevalier at the Roseland Ballroom.

Ellington and his band survived the Depression by going on the road and frequent radio broadcasts kept his popularity alive. He hired Ivie Anderson as his vocalist in 1931. She would stay with the band for eleven years until her asthma forced her to retire. She would be replaced with many vocalists over the years including Herb Jeffries and Al Hibbler. The band also made tours of England and Europe in 1933 and 1934 where Ellington was encouraged to take his music to a more formal level and to compose longer works by members of the classical music community. At the same time, the swing era was emerging and although Ellington's band could certainly "swing" (he recorded "It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing" three years before the style became popular and gave the music and the era it's name), it was known primarily for mood, nuance and composition. Always the astute businessman, Ellington recorded with smaller groups made up out of his 15 piece orchestra, focusing on the talents of individual musicians with his compositions to satisfy the growing swing audience. He was quoted as saying, "jazz is music; swing is business".

Ellington had many big hits in the 30's including "Mood Indigo", "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart",  "It Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing", "Sophisticated Lady", "In a Sentimental Mood" and "Take the A Train" which was written by Billy Strayhorn. Strayhorn joined Ellington as a lyricist in 1939 and became an intrical part of the Ellington organization until his death in 1967. Strayhorn was more than Ellington's lyricist and arranger, he would also sit in for Ellington, conducting or rehearsing the band, playing the piano and heading recordings. Ellington called him, "my right arm, my left arm, the eyes in the back of my head, my brain waves in his head and his in mine."

With Strayhorn at his side and an array of talented, creative musicians, the 1940's became a stand out time in Ellington's music. Dozens of three minute masterpieces flowed out of the group including "Cotton Tail", "Harlem Airshaft", "Main Stem" and "Jack the Bear". Ellington also began to seriously work on his long term ambition to take his compositions beyond the limit of the 3 minute 78 recordings and with Strayhorn's help, began to compose longer thematic pieces aimed at more of a concert environment. His first, "Black, Brown and Beige", was dedicated to the role of slavery and the church in the life of African Americans. It was debuted at Carnegie Hall in January of 1943 but the audience at the time was not receptive to it or any of the other longer thematic pieces Ellington composed at the time.

As the 40's came to a close, the recording bans and taxes on dancing in clubs caused a major shift in music styles and the big bands gave way to solo vocalists like Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald and to bebop, which featured smaller ensembles creating more profits for club owners. Some of Ellington's best musicians left to form bands of their own and and he was forced to keep afloat by playing one-nighters and what ever came his way. Ellington continued with his extended compositions including "Harlem" which he played for Harry Truman, presenting the music-loving President with the score.

In 1956, Ellington's Orchestra made a stunning comeback at the Newport Jazz Festival which gained them  recognition from a new audience and international publicity. The album recorded of the concert, "Ellington at Newport", would become the best selling album of Ellington's career. Ironically, much of the album was actually recorded in a studio the next day with added crowd noise because the live recording was too poor. Ella Fitzgerald recorded her "Duke Ellington Songbook" in the late 50's with Ellington and Strayhorn providing original pieces for the album, placing Ellington's music among the pantheon of great American songwriters. This period was also a productive time for his movie soundtracks. His scores for "Paris Blues" and especially, "Anatomy of a Murder," received glowing critical acclaim. 

In the 60's Ellington began to record with musicians who had been friendly rivals or those who were younger and working in different jazz styles. He made albums with Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins, Max Roach and Charles Mingus. He reached out to international artists and recorded with Alice Babs, Dollar Brand and Sithima Bea Benjamin, performing and touring all over the world. He wrote and performed what he considered his most important piece, the Sacred Concerts, a blend of jazz and religious music, in 1965 followed by "The Far East Suite" in 1966, "The New Orleans Suite" in 1970 and "The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse" in 1971 and recorded his only album with Frank Sinatra in 1967.

Ellington died of lung cancer shortly after his 75th birthday in 1974 leaving an enduring legacy of music. In his career of over 50 years he wrote over a 1,000 compositions which elevated jazz to a level on a par with other traditional music. His last words describe his devotion to his art, "Music is how I live, why I live and how I will be remembered."