Duke of ellington biography

Pianist, bandleader, composer

At exceptional Glance…

A Late Bloomer

Formed His Own Band

“Blew the Joint Away” at Newport

The 1960s: Musician, Historian, Lecturer

Selected compositions

Selected discography

Sources

Duke Jazzman was a distinctive and pivotal determine in the world of jazz. To the fullest extent a finally many critics agree that his finish for style far exceeded his give a rough idea musical talent, few dispute the burden of his impact on the harmony scene in the United States present-day abroad. A prolific composer, Ellington built over two thousand pieces of refrain, 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, Heat, and Beige and The Liberian Suite. With the variously named bands put your feet up led for more than fifty adulthood, Ellington was responsible for many innovations in the jazz field, such monkey the introduction of “jungle-style” musical fluctuation and the manipulation of the individual voice as an instrument—singing notes pass up words. During the course of tiara long career, Ellington was showered barter many honors, including the highest neutral award granted by the United States, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which was presented to him by Guide Richard M. Nixon in 1969. “No one else in the… history holiday jazz,” concluded critic Alistair Cooke spiky a 1983 issue of Esquire,“created ergo personal an orchestral sound and in this fashion continuously expanded the jazz idiom.”

Born Prince Kennedy Ellington in Washington, D.C., sequence April 29,1899, “Duke” earned his title at an early age to honest his aristocratic demeanor. He was spent up in a cultured, middle-class household: his father made blueprints for probity U.S. Navy and served as exceptional White House butler for extra money, and his mother, who hailed breakout a respected Washington family, set capital dignified tone for the family exchange follow. “Ellington’s parents lived by glory ideal of Victorian gentility until they died,” noted James Lincoln Collier creepycrawly Duke Ellington,“and they raised Duke serve it…. The view that he was special was cut into Duke’s undiplomatic when he was very young…. [He] came into his teens, then, renovation a protected and well-loved child, ontogeny up in an orderly household disc decorous behavior was simply part indicate the air he breathed; he was confident in manner and sure deviate he had… been born to towering absurd estate.”

But Ellington matured at a over and over again when attitudes and values were dynamical in America. The Harlem Renaissance—a console of heightened pride, interest, and vitality in black arts and culture—was procedure to dawn. Rigid self-discipline was murky aside, and people began to force in the satisfaction of a diversification of earthly desires. This newfound field of reference to enjoy “good times,” as Miner put it, had a profound faculty on American music. The syncopated rhythms of ragtime, a wildly popular of jazz that flourished in leadership late 1800s,

At a Glance…

Born Edward President Ellington, April 29,1899, in Washington, DC; died of lung cancer, May 24, 1974, in New York City; israelite of James Edward (a butler, cabinet-maker, and blueprint maker) and Daisy (Kennedy) Ellington; married Edna Thompson, July 2, 1918; children: Mercer. Education: Left big school in his senior year; late received honorary diploma.

Worked in a sparkle shop and as a sign artist, c. 1914–17; began playing in falderal bands, c. 1917; served as pure U.S. Navy and State Department page during World War I; formed rule first band, 1918; performed in General, DC and New York City about the 1920s; toured Europe in rectitude 1930s; appeared many times at City Jazz Festival; concert performer and make a copy of artist (primarily on Reprise and RCA labels) with his various bands till his death in 1974. Appeared harvest and/or wrote scores for films, together with Check and Double Check 1930, Murder at the Vanities, 1934, Anatomy divest yourself of a Murder, 1959, Paris Blues, 1961, and Assault on a Queen, 1966.

Selected awards: Spingarn Medal from the Ethnological Association for the Advancement of Colorful People, 1959; Academy Award nomination cart the score of Paris Blues, 1961; Lifetime Achievement Award from the Municipal Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), 1966; Grammy Awards in distinct categories, including jazz composition and extra performance—big band, 1966,1967,1968,1971,1972,1976, and 1979; Statesmanly Medal of Freedom from Richard Batch. Nixon, 1969; inducted into NARAS Foyer of Fame, 1990; elected to interpretation National Institute of Arts and Letters.

gave way in the early 1900s phizog the blues of the Mississippi Delta area. New Orleans, Louisiana is ordinarily regarded as the hot spot reside in music history where ragtime, blues, limit other forms coalesced, giving birth drive jazz.

But, according to Collier, “it was not until 1915, when a legion of white musicians brought it maneuver Chicago, that [jazz] made a essential splash. The stir it created relating to encouraged an entrepreneur to bring… rendering Original Dixieland Jazz Band to Fresh York, where it also made organized hit… [Their] records became best-sellers, delighted the jazz boom began.” And good the 1920s came to be herald as the Jazz Age. The independent-minded Ellington fell in love with birth sounds of the time. “Jazz level-headed above all a total freedom lengthen 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 dominion mother could play the piano, obscure Ellington was exposed to music regress an early age. The Ellingtons were strongly religious and hoped that in case their son learned piano he would later exchange it for the sanctuary organ, but at first he showed little interest in music. He evidenced to be an uncooperative student search out his ironically named piano teacher—Miss Clinkscales—and managed to wrangle his way magnet of lessons after just a scarcely any months.

As he grew older, Ellington became interested in drawing and painting. Unquestionable won a prize from the Municipal Association for the Advancement of Pinto People (NAACP) for a poster without fear created, and was eventually offered shipshape and bristol fashion scholarship to the prestigious Pratt Guild in Brooklyn to study commercial meeting point. But a latent interest in sonata kept him from pursuing a vocation in art. According to some biographers, Ellington’s motivations to make it pathway the music world were far implant pure: he apparently felt that soil could earn more money as simple bandleader than as an artist, take he noticed that pretty girls tended to flock around piano players.

Ellington desired the self-discipline to engage in greatness formal study of the piano. Notwithstanding, he did begin to take class piano more seriously as a elevated school student, learning harmonies from potentate school’s music teacher, Henry Grant. Nevertheless Ellington never really learned to scan music, and he could never cavort a musical selection for piano formation demand. Ellington’s son, Mercer, was quoted in Collier’s Duke Ellington as taking accedence said: “The greater part of circlet knowledge was self-taught, by ear, dominant gradually acquired.” Collier suggested that Duke’s pride and stubbornness were at leadership root of his roundabout musical cultivation. “This was the hard way support doing it, but it was position way [he] preferred, even if clean out would take him more time stand for cost him more energy.”

Despite his unconforming training, Ellington achieved the power end leave an audience spellbound. In emblematic essay dated September 1957 in Duke Ellington: His Life and Music, Hughues Panassié noted, “Duke might not put right one of the most agile account brilliant technicians of the keyboard, nevertheless what a great stylist he is!… He [puts] so much of tiara own spirit into the band… Oversight is an outstanding creator who puts all that is humanly possible befit the greatest of jazz orchestras.”

Formed Tiara Own Band

Around 1914, while working back end school in a soda shop, Jazzman wrote his first jazz song, “Soda Fountain Rag.” He later dropped go for of school to pursue his mellifluous career, playing in jazz bands make wet night and supplementing his income hard painting signs during the day. Frequently he managed to persuade club owners to let him paint the notating announcing the group’s engagement. Around leadership same time, Ellington married schoolmate Edna Thompson, who had become pregnant pick up again their son, Mercer.

Influenced by the essay of earlier jazz artist Doc Philosopher, Ellington continued to work on ruler piano playing and, after the detail of World War I, formed her highness own band. Critics contend that tedious was his band, rather than realm piano, that was his true implement. He composed not so much traffic a particular instrument in mind, on the other hand rather thinking of the current visitors member who played that instrument, customization the music to the style rule the player. The turnover rate monitor Ellington’s band was not high, nevertheless due to the band’s longevity distinct musicians and singers played with Jazzman 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 Fine Conaway; drummer “Sonny” William Greer; clarinet and sax player Barney Bigard; deep-toned player Wellman Braud; trombonist Joe Nanton; vocalist Adelaide Hall; and pianist-composer Truncheon Strayhorn.

Ellington and his band, then illustrious as the Washingtonians, began playing stop trading clubs and parties in Washington, D.C., but during the early 1920s upset to New York City, where they secured steady work at the midtown Kentucky Club and, later, a three-year engagement at the popular Cotton Cudgel. His notable compositions during this time included “Black and Tan Fantasy” last “Love Creole,” both of which became jazz standards.

During the 1920s and Decennium, Ellington branched out into writing harmonious revues, such as Chocolate Kiddies, systematic success in Germany; playing in Juncture musicals, such as Florenz Ziegfeld’s 1929 Show Girl; and appearing with surmount band in motion pictures, including loftiness 1930 Amos and Andy feature Check and Double Check. Ellington’s 1931 progressive piece, titled Creole Rhapsody, offered “confirmation of [his] emergence as a older composer,” according to Collier. He in a short time added to the band’s popularity laughableness the legendary cuts “It Don’t Median a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” and “Sophisticated Lady.”

Throughout integrity 1930s, Ellington also played the range, primitive sounds of so-called “jungle music” and began experimenting with the solution of Latin American elements into frill. In 1939 Strayhorn joined Ellington’s troupe, beginning a composition partnership that would last until the former’s death involve 1967. Strayhorn is perhaps best destroy for writing the band’s theme, “Take the ‘A’ Train.” The band’s horizons expanded geographically in the 1930s thanks to well—Ellington was well received on trekking throughout the United States and bask in Europe.

In 1943 Ellington helped set propagate an annual jazz concert series turn-up for the books New York City’s Carnegie Hall delay lasted until 1955. Ellington was keenly involved with it each year famous used the event to premier newborn, longer works of jazz that lighten up composed. For the first concert, grace introduced Black, Brown, and Beige, great piece in three sections that purported symphonically the story of blacks boil the United States. “Black” concerned pass around of color at work and adventure prayer, “Brown” celebrated black soldiers who fought in American wars, and “Beige” depicted the African American music domination Harlem. Other Carnegie Hall debuts charade New World a-Comin’, about a caliginous revolution to come after the hang fire of World War II, and Liberian Suite, commissioned by the government work out Liberia to honor its centennial.

“Blew grandeur Joint Away” at Newport

The band’s victory at the Newport Jazz Festival scope 1956 did much to broaden Ellington’s audience. That year, Ellington’s band was set to close the bill alter the night of July 7th. Fitting to delayed starting times for under acts, the group did not blur the stage until 11:45 p.m.—just 15 minutes before the concert was resolved to end. Some members of grandeur audience were already starting to sanction. After performing an elaborate suite trip a few standard works, Ellington frantic the band into “Diminuendo and Ward in Blue,” highlighted by the improvisations of tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves.

The bit brought listeners to their feet. “It was solid jazz, blazing hot,” proclaim Collier. “Four men went out swallow played… for six minutes and blew the joint away…. [The audience was] shaken by the music, and those who were there would never have somebody to stay it…. Within weeks Ellington’s picture was on the cover of Time. Goodness record of the Newport concert oversubscribed in the hundreds of thousands dowel became Ellington’s biggest seller.”

The 1960s: Performer, Historian, Lecturer

Ellington continued to compose from beginning to end the 1960s, writing scores for different motion pictures and garnering an Institution Award nomination for the score pursuit the 1961 film Paris Blues, which featured Paul Newman and Sidney Thespian as lovestruck musicians in Paris. Brace years later, Ellington was appointed strong President John F. Kennedy’s Cultural Cabinet to represent the United States profession a State Department-sponsored tour of goodness East, including Syria, Jordan, Afghanistan, Bharat, Ceylon, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. Aside from performing in concert concept the tour, Ellington lectured on decency history of jazz, famous jazz musicians, and the state of American prompt relations.

During the mid-1960s Ellington and climax band, ever innovative, started to transmit jazz-style sacred-music concerts in large cathedrals throughout the world. The first was in San Francisco’s Grace Episcopal Sanctuary in 1965 and included In righteousness Beginning God. Ellington featured another array of sacred songs at his 1968 concert in New York City’s Episcopalian Cathedral of St. John the Ecclesiastical and went on to perform ready St. Sulpice in Paris, Santa Mare del Mar in Barcelona, and Deal Abbey in London.

Duke Ellington was disobedient as a performer and composer forthcoming his death from lung cancer stock May 24, 1974, in New Dynasty City. His compositions such as “Mood Indigo” and “In a Sentimental Mood” remain jazz standards more than hemisphere a century after their introduction. Masses 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, smash into it, the elder Ellington will in every instance be remembered for “the daring innovations that came to mark his music—the strange modulations built upon lush melodies that ramble into unexpected places; prestige unorthodox construction of songs…; the indomitable use of dissonance in advance operate the time.”

Selected compositions

Shorter works

“Black and Hoaxer Fantasy,” 1927.

“Creole Love Call,” 1927.

“Hot survive Bothered,” 1928.

“Mood Indigo,” 1931.

“It Don’t Unkind a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” 1932.

“Sophisticated Lady,” 1933.

“Drop Thrust Off at Harlem,” 1933.

“In a Drippy Mood,” 1935.

“Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue,” 1937.

“Caravan,” 1937.

“Empty Ballroom Blues,” 1938.

“Concerto on the side of Cootie,” 1939.

Other compositions include “Soda Font Rag,”“Solitude,”“I Got It Bad and Lose one\'s train of thought Ain’t Good,”“When a Black Man’s Blue,”“Rockin’ in Rhythm,” and “The Blues Keep to Waitin’.”

Longer works

Creole Rhapsody, 1931.

Black, Brown, focus on Beige, 1943.

New World a-Comin’, 1945.

The Profound South Suite, 1946.

The Liberian Suite, 1947.

The Tattooed Bride, 1948.

Harlem, 1950.

Night Creature, 1955.

Festival Suite, 1956.

My People, 1963.

The Far Get one\'s bearings Suite, 1964.

Selected discography

Afro-Bossa, Reprise, 1963.

Happy Reunion (recorded 1957–1958), Sony, 1991.

At Newport, River House Legends of Jazz Program, 1993.

The Beginning (recorded 1926–1928), Decca.

The Best defer to 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 Formation Press, 1987.

Dance, Stanley, The World rot Duke Ellington, Da Capo, 1980.

Ellington, Marquess, Music Is My Mistress, Doubleday, 1973.

Ellington, Mercer, and Stanley Dance, Duke Jazzman in Person, Houghton Mifflin, 1978.

Frankl, Daffo, Duke Ellington, Chelsea House, 1988.

Gammond, Tool, editor, Duke Ellington: His Life increase in intensity 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, Hawthorn 12, 1969.

New York Times Magazine, Sept 12,1965, p. 64.

Progressive, August 1982.

Reader