Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 –
May 24, 1974) was an American composer, pianist, and
big band leader.
Duke Ellington became one of the most influential artists in the
history of recorded music, and is largely recognized as one of the
greatest figures in the history of
jazz, though his music stretched into various other genres,
including blues, gospel, movie soundtracks, popular, and classical.
His career spanned five decades and included leading his orchestra,
composing an inexhaustible songbook, scoring for movies, and world
tours. Due to his inventive use of the orchestra, or big band, and
in part to his refined public manner and extraordinary charisma, he
is generally considered to have elevated the perception of jazz to
an artistic level on par with that of classical music. His
reputation increased after his death, and he received a special
award citation from the
Pulitzer
Prize Board in 1999.
Ellington called his music "American Music" rather than jazz, and
liked to describe those who impressed him as "beyond category."
These included many of the musicians who were members of his
orchestra, some of whom are considered among the best in jazz in
their own right, but it was Ellington who melded them into one of
the most well-known
jazz orchestral
units in the history of jazz. He often composed specifically for
the style and skills of these individuals, such as "Jeep's Blues"
for
Johnny Hodges, "Concerto for
Cootie" for
Cootie Williams, which
later became "
Do
Nothing Till You Hear from Me" with
Bob
Russell's lyrics, and "The Mooche" for
Tricky Sam Nanton and
Bubber Miley. He also recorded songs written by
his bandsmen, such as
Juan Tizol's
"
Caravan" and "
Perdido" which brought the '
Spanish Tinge' to
big-band jazz. Several members of the orchestra
remained there for several decades. After 1941, he frequently
collaborated with composer-arranger-pianist
Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his "writing
and arranging companion." Ellington recorded for many American
record companies, and appeared in several
films.
Ellington led his band from 1923 until his death in 1974. His son
Mercer Ellington, who had already
been handling all administrative aspects of his father's business
for several decades, led the band until his own death from cancer
in 1996. At that point, the band dissolved. Paul Ellington,
Mercer's youngest son and executor of the Duke Ellington estate,
kept "The Duke Ellington Orchestra." going from Mercer's passing
onwards.
Biography
Early life
Edward Kennedy Ellington was born on April 29, 1899 to James Edward
Ellington and Daisy Kennedy Ellington.
They lived with his
maternal grandparents at 2129 Idk Place, NW in Washington,
D.C.
James Edward Ellington was born in Lincolnton,
North Carolina
on April 15, 1879 and moved to Washington, D.C. in
1886 with his parents. Daisy Kennedy, was born in
Washington, D.C. on January 4, 1879, and was the daughter of a
former American slave. J.E. made
blueprint for the
United States Navy. He also worked as a
butler for Dr. Middleton F.
Cuthbert, a prominent white physician, and
occasionally worked as a White House
caterer. Daisy and J.E. were both piano
players—she played
parlor songs and he
operatic airs.
At the age of seven, Ellington began taking piano lessons from
Marietta Clinkscales. Daisy surrounded her son with dignified women
to reinforce his manners and teach him to live elegantly.
Ellington’s childhood friends noticed that "his casual, offhand
manner, his easy grace, and his dapper dress gave him the bearing
of a young nobleman",and began calling him Duke. Ellington credited
his "chum" Edgar McEntree for the nickname. "I think he felt that
in order for me to be eligible for his constant companionship, I
should have a title. So he called me Duke."
Though Ellington took piano lessons, he was more interested in
baseball. "President Roosevelt (Teddy) would come by on his horse
sometimes, and stop and watch us play," he recalled. Ellington went
to Armstrong Technical High School in Washington, D.C. He got his
first job selling peanuts at
Washington
Senators baseball games, where he conquered his stage
fright.
In the summer of 1914, while working as a
soda
jerk at the Poodle Dog Café, he wrote his first composition,
"Soda Fountain Rag" (also known as the "Poodle Dog Rag"). Ellington
created "Soda Fountain Rag" by ear, because he had not yet learned
to read and write music. "I would play the 'Soda Fountain Rag' as a
one-step, two-step, waltz, tango, and fox trot," Ellington
recalled. "Listeners never knew it was the same piece. I was
established as having my own repertoire." In his autobiography,
Music is my Mistress (1973), Ellington said he missed more
lessons than he attended, feeling at the time that playing the
piano was not his talent. Ellington started sneaking into Frank
Holiday's Poolroom at age fourteen. Hearing the poolroom pianists
play ignited Ellington's love for the instrument and he began to
take his piano studies seriously.
Ellington
began listening to, watching, and imitating ragtime pianists, not
only in Washington, D.C., but in Philadelphia
and Atlantic
City
, where he vacationed with his mother during the
summer months. Dunbar High
School
music teacher Henry Lee Grant gave him private
lessons in harmony. With the additional guidance of
Washington pianist and band leader Oliver "Doc" Perry, Ellington
learned to read
sheet music, project a
professional style, and improve his technique. Ellington was also
inspired by his first encounters with
stride pianists James P. Johnson and
Luckey Roberts. Later in New York he took
advice from
Will Marion Cook,
Fats Waller, and
Sidney Bechet. Ellington started to play gigs
in cafés and clubs in and around Washington, D.C. and began to
realize his love for music.
His attachment grew to be so strong that he
turned down an art scholarship to the Pratt Institute
in Brooklyn in 1916. He dropped out of
Armstrong Manual Training School, where he was studying commercial
art three months before his graduation.
From 1917 through 1919, Ellington launched his musical career,
painting commercial signs by day and playing piano by night.
Through his day job, Duke's entrepreneurial side came out: when a
customer would ask him to make a sign for a dance or party, he
would ask them if they had musical entertainment; if not, Ellington
would ask if he could play for them. He also had a messenger job
with the U.S. Navy and State Departments. Ellington moved out of
his parents' home and bought his own as he became a successful
pianist. At first, he played in other ensembles, and in late 1917
formed his first group, "The Duke’s Serenaders" ("Colored
Syncopators", his telephone directory advertising proclaimed). He
was not only a member, but also the booking agent. His first play
date was at the True Reformer's Hall, where he took home 75
cents.
Ellington played throughout the Washington, D.C. area and into
Virginia for private society balls and embassy parties. The band
included
Otto Hardwick, who switched
from bass to saxophone;
Arthur
Whetsol on trumpet;
Elmer Snowden
on banjo; and
Sonny Greer on drums. The
band thrived, performing for both African-American and white
audiences, a rarity during the racially divided times.
Early career
200
When his
drummer Sonny Greer was invited to join
the Wilber Sweatman Orchestra in New
York City, Ellington made the fateful decision to leave behind his
successful career in Washington, D.C. and move to Harlem
, becoming
one of the figures of the 'Harlem
Renaissance'. New dance crazes like the
Charleston emerged in Harlem, as well as
African-American musical theater, including
Eubie Blake's
Shuffle Along. After the young musicians
left the Sweatman Orchestra to strike out on their own, they found
an emerging jazz scene that was highly competitive and hard to
crack. They hustled pool by day and played whatever gig they could
find. The young band met
Willie "The Lion"
Smith who introduced them to the scene and gave them some
money. They played at
rent-house parties
for income. After a few months though, the young musicians returned
to Washington, D.C. feeling discouraged.
In June
1923, a gig in Atlantic City
, New Jersey led to a play date at the prestigious
Exclusive Club in Harlem, followed in September 1923 by a move to
the Hollywood Club, 49th and Broadway, and a four-year engagement,
which gave Ellington a solid artistic base. The group was
called Elmer Snowden and his Black Sox Orchestra and had seven
members, including
James "Bubber" Miley. They
renamed themselves "The Washingtonians". When Snowden left the
group in early 1924, Ellington took over as bandleader. After a
fire, the club was re-opened as the Club Kentucky (often referred
to as the "Kentucky Club"), an engagement which set the stage for
the biggest opportunities in Ellington's life.
Ellington made eight records in 1924, receiving composing credit on
three including
Choo Choo. In 1925, Ellington contributed
four songs to
Chocolate Kiddies, an all-African-American
revue which introduced European audiences to African-American
styles and performers. "Duke Ellington and his Kentucky Club
Orchestra" grew to a ten-piece organization, developing their
distinct sound, displaying the non-traditional expression of
Ellington’s arrangements, the street rhythms of Harlem, and the
exotic-sounding trombone growls and wah-wahs, high-squealing
trumpets, and sultry saxophone blues licks of the band members. For
a short time, the great soprano saxophonist
Sidney Bechet played with the group, imparting
his propulsive swing and superior musicianship on the young band
members. This helped attract the attention of some of the biggest
names of jazz, including
Paul
Whiteman.
In 1927,
King Oliver turned down a regular
booking for his group as the house band at Harlem's Cotton Club
; the offer passed to Ellington. With a
weekly radio broadcast and famous white clientèle nightly pouring
in to see them, Ellington and his band thrived in the period from
1932 to 1942, a "golden age" for the band.
Although trumpeter Bubber Miley was a member of the orchestra for
only a short period, he had a major influence on Ellington's sound.
An early experimenter of growl trumpet, his style changed the
"sweet" dance band sound of the group to one that was hotter, which
contemporaries termed 'jungle' style. He also composed most of
"
Black and Tan Fantasy" and
"
Creole Love Call". An alcoholic,
Miley had to leave the band before they gained wider fame. He died
in 1932 at the age of twenty-nine. He was an important influence on
Cootie Williams, who replaced
him.
In 1927 Ellington made a career-advancing agreement with
agent-publisher
Irving Mills giving
Mills a 45% interest in Ellington's future. Mills had an eye for
new talent and early on published compositions by
Hoagy Carmichael,
Dorothy Fields, and
Harold Arlen. During the 1930s, Ellington's
popularity continued to increase, largely as a result of the
promotional skills of Mills, who got more than his fair share of
co-composer credits. Mills arranged recording sessions on the
Brunswick, Victor, and Columbia labels which gave Ellington popular
recognition. Mills took the management burden off of Ellington's
shoulders, allowing him to focus on his band's sound and his
compositions. Ellington ended his association with Mills in 1937,
although he continued to record under Mills' banner through to
1940.
At the Cotton Club, Ellington's group performed all the music for
the revues, which mixed comedy, dance numbers, vaudeville,
burlesque, music, and illegal alcohol. The musical numbers were
composed by
Jimmy McHugh and the lyrics
by
Dorothy Fields (later
Harold Arlen and
Ted
Koehler), with some Ellington originals mixed in. Weekly radio
broadcasts from the club gave Ellington national exposure. In 1929,
Ellington appeared in his first movie, a nineteen-minute
all-African-American RKO short,
Black
and Tan, in which he played the hero "Duke". In the same
year, The Cotton Club Orchestra appeared on stage for several
months in
Florenz Ziegfeld's
Show Girl, along with vaudeville stars
Jimmy Durante,
Eddie
Foy, Jr.,
Al Jolson,
Ruby Keeler, and with music and lyrics by
George Gershwin and
Gus Kahn. That feverish period also included
numerous recordings, under the pseudonyms "Whoopee Makers", "The
Jungle Band", "Harlem Footwarmers", and the "Ten Black Berries".
In 1930,
Ellington and his Orchestra connected with a whole different
audience in a concert with Maurice
Chevalier and they also performed at the Roseland
Ballroom
, "America's foremost ballroom". Noted
composer
Percy Grainger was also an
early admirer and supporter.
In 1929, when Ellington conducted the orchestra for
Show
Girl, he met
Will Vodery,
Ziegfeld’s musical supervisor. In his 1946 biography,
Duke
Ellington, Barry Ulanov wrote: “From Vodery, as he (Ellington)
says himself, he drew his chromatic convictions, his uses of the
tones ordinarily extraneous to the diatonic scale, with the
consequent alteration of the harmonic character of his music, its
broadening, The deepening of his resources. It has become customary
to ascribe the classical influences upon Duke -
Delius,
Debussy and
Ravel - to direct contact with their music.
Actually his serious appreciation of those and other modern
composers, came after his meeting with Vodery.”
As the Depression worsened, the recording industry was in crisis,
dropping over 90% of its artists by 1933. Ellington and his
orchestra survived the hard times by taking to the road in a series
of tours. Radio exposure also helped maintain popularity.
Ivie Anderson was hired as their featured
vocalist. Sonny Greer had been providing occasional vocals and
continued to do in a cross-talk feature with Anderson.
Ellington led the orchestra by conducting from the keyboard using
piano cues and visual gestures; very rarely did he conduct using a
baton. As a bandleader, Ellington was not a strict disciplinarian
but he maintained control of his orchestra with a crafty
combination of charm, humor, flattery, and astute psychology. A
complex, private person, he revealed his feelings to only his
closest intimates and effectively used his public persona to
deflect attention away from himself.
While their United States audience remained mainly African-American
in this period, the Cotton Club had a near exclusive white
clientèle and the band had a huge following overseas, demonstrated
both in a trip to England in 1933 and a 1934 visit to the European
mainland. The English visit saw Ellington win praise from members
of the 'serious' music community, including composer
Constant Lambert, which gave a boost to
Ellington's aspiration to compose longer works. For agent Mills, it
was a publicity triumph, as Ellington was now internationally
known. On their tour through the segregated South in 1934, they
avoided some of the traveling difficulties of African-Americans by
touring in private railcars, which provided easy accommodations,
dining, and storage for equipment, while avoiding the indignities
of segregated facilities.
The death of Ellington's mother in 1935 led to a temporary hiatus
in his career. Competition was also intensifying, as
African-American and white swing bands began to receive popular
attention, including those of
Benny
Goodman,
Tommy Dorsey,
Jimmy Dorsey,
Jimmie Lunceford,
Benny Carter,
Earl
Hines,
Chick Webb, and
Count Basie. Swing dancing became a youth
phenomenon, particularly with white college audiences, and
"danceability" drove record sales and bookings.
Jukeboxes proliferated nationwide spreading the
gospel of "swing". Ellington band could certainly "swing", but
Ellington's strength was mood and nuance, and richness of
composition, hence his statement "jazz is music; swing is
business". Ellington countered with two developments. He made
recordings of smaller groups (sextets, octets, and nonets) drawn
from his then 15-man orchestra and he composed pieces intended to
feature specific instrumentalist, as with
Jeep's Blues for
Johnny Hodges,
Yearning for
Love for
Lawrence
Brown,
Trumpet in Spades for
Rex Stewart,
Echoes of Harlem for
Cootie Williams and
Clarinet
Lament for
Barney Bigard.
In 1937, Ellington returned to the Cotton Club which had relocated
to the mid-town theater district. In the summer of that year, his
father died, and due to many expenses Ellington's financese were
tight. Things improved in 1938 and he met and moved in with Cotton
Club employee Beatrice "Evie" Ellis. After splitting with agent
Irving Mills, he signed on with the
William Morris Agency. The 1930s ended
with a very successful European tour just as World War II
loomed.
Ellington delivered some huge hits during the 1930s, which greatly
helped to build his overall reputation. Some of them include:
"
Mood Indigo" (1930), "
It Don't Mean
a Thing " (1932), "
Sophisticated
Lady" (1933), "
Solitude"
(1934), "
In a Sentimental
Mood" (1935), "
Caravan" (1937),
"I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart" (1938). "
Take the "A" Train" which hit big in 1941, was
written by
Billy Strayhorn.
Strayhorn, originally hired as a lyricist, began his association
with Ellington in 1939. Nicknamed "Swee' Pea" for his mild manner,
Strayhorn soon became a vital member of the Ellington Organization.
Ellington showed great fondness for Strayhorn and never failed to
speak glowingly of the man and their collaborative working
relationship, "my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back
of my head, my brain waves in his head, and his in mine".
Strayhorn, with his training in classical music, not only
contributed his original lyrics and music, but also arranged and
polished many of Ellington's works, becoming, in essence, a second
Ellington or "Duke's doppelganger". It was not uncommon for
Strayhorn to fill in for Duke, whether in conducting or rehearsing
the band, or in playing the piano, on stage and in the recording
studio.
Duke in the 1940s
Duke Ellington at the Hurricane Club
in New York, May 1943
The band reached a creative peak in the early 1940s, when Ellington
wrote for an orchestra of distinctive voices and displayed
tremendous creativity. Some of the musicians created a sensation in
their own right. The short-lived
Jimmy
Blanton transformed the use of
double
bass in jazz, allowing it to function as a solo rather than a
rhythm instrument alone.
Ben Webster,
the Orchestra's first regular tenor saxophonist, started a rivalry
with Johnny Hodges as the Orchestra's foremost voice in the sax
section.
Ray Nance joined, replacing
Cootie Williams (who had "defected",
contemporary wags claimed, to
Benny
Goodman). Nance, however, added violin to the instrumental
colors Ellington had at his disposal. Three-minute masterpieces
flowed from the minds of Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Ellington's
son
Mercer Ellington, and members
of the Orchestra. "
Cotton Tail", "Main
Stem", "Harlem Airshaft", "Sidewalks of New York (East Side, West
Side)" and dozens of others date from this period.
Privately made
recordings of Nance's first concert date, at Fargo, North
Dakota
, on November 7, 1940 by Jack Towers and Dick
Burris, are probably the most effective display of the band during
this period. These recordings are among the first of
innumerable live performances which survive, made by enthusiasts or
broadcasters, significantly expanding the Ellington
discography.
Ellington's long-term aim became to extend the jazz form from the
three-minute limit of the
78 rpm
record side, of which he was an acknowledged master. He had
composed and recorded
Creole Rhapsody as early as 1931,
and his tribute to his mother, "Reminiscing in Tempo," had filled
four 10" record sides in 1935; however, it was not until the 1940s
that this became a regular feature of Ellington's work. In this, he
was helped by Strayhorn, who had enjoyed a more thorough training
in the forms associated with
classical music than Ellington. The
first of these, "
Black, Brown,
and Beige" (1943), was dedicated to telling the story of
African-Americans, and the place
of slavery and the church in their history.
Ellington debuted
Black, Brown and Beige in Carnegie Hall
on January 23, 1943, beginning a series of concerts
there suited to displaying Ellington's longer works. While
some jazz musicians had played at Carnegie Hall before, few had
performed anything as elaborate as Ellington’s work. Unfortunately,
starting a regular pattern, Ellington's longer works were generally
not well-received;
Jump for Joy, a musical which debuted
in 1941, closed after only six performances .
The settlement of the
first
recording ban of 1942–43 had a serious effect on all the big
bands because of the increase in royalty payments to musicians
which resulted from it. The financial viability of Ellington's
Orchestra came under threat, though Ellington's income as a
songwriter ultimately subsidized it. Ellington always spent
lavishly and although he drew a respectable income from the
Orchestra's operations, the band's income often just covered
expenses.
Meanwhile, the development of modern jazz, or
bebop, the music industry's shift to solo vocalists
such as the young
Frank Sinatra as the
Big Band era receded. Bebop rebelled against commercial jazz,
dancing to jazz, and strict forms to become the music of jazz
aficionados. Furthermore, by 1950 the emerging African-American
popular music style known as
Rhythm and
Blues drew away the young African-American audience and
Rock & Roll soon followed. In
the face of these major social shifts, Ellington continued on his
own course. For a time though Ellington continued to turn out major
works, such as the
Kay Davis vocal feature
Transblucency and major extended compositions such as
Harlem (1950), whose score he presented to music-loving
President
Harry Truman.
In 1951, Ellington suffered a major loss of personnel, with Sonny
Greer, Lawrence Brown, and most significantly
Johnny Hodges, leaving to pursue other
ventures. Lacking overseas opportunities and motion picture
appearances, Ellington Orchestra survived on "one-nighters" and
whatever else came their way, even six weeks in the summer of 1955
as the band for the Aquacade in
Flushing, New York, where Ellington is
supposed to have "invented" a drink known as "The Tornado," the
only alcoholic concoction that features his signature
Coca-Cola and sugar. Even though he made many
television appearances, Ellington's hope that television would
provide a significant new outlet for his type of jazz was not
fulfilled. The introduction of the 33 1/3 rpm LP record and hi-fi
phonograph did give new life to older compositions.
However by 1955,
after three years of recording for Capitol
, Ellington no longer had a regular recording
affiliation.
Career revival
Ellington in 1973
Ellington's appearance at the
Newport Jazz Festival on July 7, 1956
returned him to wider prominence and exposed him to new audiences.
The feature "
Diminuendo
and Crescendo in Blue", with saxophonist
Paul Gonsalves's six-minute saxophone solo,
had been in the band's book since 1937, but on this occasion nearly
created a riot. The revived attention should not have surprised
anyone – Hodges had returned to the fold the previous year, and
Ellington's collaboration with Strayhorn had been renewed around
the same time, under terms more amenable to the younger man.
Such Sweet Thunder
(1957), based on
Shakespeare's
plays and characters, and
The Queen's Suite, dedicated to
Queen Elizabeth
II, were products of the renewed impetus which the Newport
appearance helped to create.
A new record contract with Columbia produced Ellington's
best-selling LP
Ellington at Newport and yielded six years
of recording stability under producer
Irving Townsend, who coaxed both commercial
and artistic productions from Ellington. In 1957, CBS (Columbia's
parent corporation) aired a live television production of
A Drum Is a Woman, an
allegorical suite which received mixed reviews. Festival
appearances at the new
Monterey
Jazz Festival and elsewhere provided venues for live exposure,
and a European tour in 1958 was wildly received. After a 25-year
gap, Ellington (with Strayhorn) returned to work on film scores,
this time for
Anatomy of a
Murder (1959) and
Paris
Blues (1961). Ellington and Strayhorn, always looking for
new musical territory, produced adaptations of
John Steinbeck's novel
Sweet
Thursday,
Tchaikovsky's
Nutcracker Suite and
Edvard
Grieg's
Peer Gynt. The late 1950s also saw
Ella Fitzgerald record her
Duke Ellington
Songbook with Ellington and his orchestra—a recognition
that Ellington's songs had now become part of the cultural canon
known as the "
Great American
Songbook".
Detroit Free Press music
critic Mark Stryker concludes that the work of
Billy Strayhorn and Ellington in
Anatomy of a Murder is
"indispensable, [although] . . . too sketchy to rank in the top
echelon among Ellington-Strayhorn masterpiece suites like
Such Sweet Thunder and
The Far East Suite, but
its most inspired moments are their equal." Film historians have
recognized the soundtrack "as a landmark – the first significant
Hollywood film music by African Americans comprising non-
diegetic music, that is, music whose source is not
visible or implied by action in the film, like an on-screen band."
The score avoided the cultural
stereotypes which previously characterized jazz
scores and rejected a strict adherence to visuals in ways that
presaged the
New Wave cinema of the
’60s".
In the early 1960s, Ellington was between recording contracts,
which allowed him to record with a variety of artists not
previously associated with him. The Ellington and
Count Basie orchestras recorded together and he
made a record with
Coleman Hawkins,
another with
Louis Armstrong, plus a
sequence of albums for
Frank Sinatra's
new
Reprise label. In 1962, he
participated in a session which produced the
Money Jungle (
United Artists) album with
Charles Mingus and
Max
Roach, and also recorded with
John
Coltrane for
Impulse. Musicians
who had previously worked with Ellington returned to the Orchestra
as members: Lawrence Brown in 1960 and
Cootie Williams in 1962. Ellington was by
now performing all over the world (a significant part of each year
was now spent making overseas tours), and he formed notable new
working relationships, among which included the Swedish vocalist
Alice Babs, and South African musicians
Dollar Brand and
Sathima Bea Benjamin (
A Morning in
Paris, 1963/1997). His earlier hits were now established
standards, earning Ellington impressive royalties. "The writing and
playing of music is a matter of intent.... You can't just throw a
paint brush against the wall and call whatever happens art. My
music fits the tonal personality of the player. I think too
strongly in terms of altering my music to fit the performer to be
impressed by accidental music. You can't take doodling
seriously."
Last years
Ellington was nominated for a
Pulitzer
Prize in 1965, but was turned down. His reaction at 67 years
old: "Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be famous
too young." In September of the same year, the first of his
Sacred
Concerts was given its premiere. It was an attempt to fuse
Christian liturgy with jazz, and even though it received mixed
reviews, Ellington was proud of the composition and performed it
dozens of times. This concert was followed by two others of the
same type in 1968 and 1973, known as the Second and Third Sacred
Concerts. This caused controversy in what was already a tumultuous
time in the United States. Many saw the Sacred Music suites as an
attempt to reinforce commercial support for organized religion,
though Ellington simply said it was, "the most important thing I've
done."
The Steinway
piano upon which the Sacred Concerts were composed
is part of the collection of the Smithsonian
's National Museum of American
History
. Like
Haydn and
Mozart, Ellington conducted
his orchestra from the piano - he always played the keyboard parts
when the Sacred Concerts were performed.
Ellington continued to make vital and innovative recordings,
including
The Far East
Suite (1966), the
New Orleans Suite (1970), and
The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse (1971), much of it inspired by
his world tours. It was during this time that Ellington recorded
his only album with
Frank Sinatra,
entitled
Francis
A. & Edward
K. (1967).
Ellington was awarded the
Grammy Lifetime Achievement
Award in 1966.
He was later awarded several other prizes,
the Presidential Medal of
Freedom in 1969, an Honorary PhD from the Berklee
College of Music
in 1971, and the Legion of Honor by France in 1973, the
highest civilian honors in each country. He died of lung
cancer and pneumonia on May 24, 1974, a month after his 75th
birthday, and was interred in the Woodlawn
Cemetery
, The
Bronx
, New York City. At his funeral attended by
over 12,000 people at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine,
Ella Fitzgerald summed up the
occasion, "It's a very sad day. A genius has passed." Mercer
Ellington picked up the reins of the orchestra immediately after
Duke's death. Before Ellington died, his last words were, "Music is
how I live, why I live and how I will be remembered."
Work in films and the theater
Ellington's film work began in 1929 with the
short film Black and
Tan .
Symphony In
Black (1935) featured his extended piece 'A Rhapsody of
Negro Life'. It introduced
Billie
Holiday, and won an
Academy Award
as the best musical short subject. He also appeared in the
Amos 'n' Andy film
Check and Double Check (1930).
Ellington and his Orchestra continued to appear in films through
the 1930s and 1940s, both in short films and in features such as
Murder at the
Vanities, and
Belle
Of The Nineties, (1934), and
Cabin In The Sky (1943). In the late
1950s, his work in films took the shape of
scoring for soundtracks, notably
Anatomy of a Murder (1959), with
James Stewart, in which he
appeared fronting a roadhouse combo, and
Paris Blues, (1961), which featured
Paul Newman and
Sidney Poitier as jazz musicians.
He wrote an original score for director
Michael Langham's production of
Shakespeare's
Timon of
Athens at the
Stratford Festival in
Ontario, Canada which opened on July 29, 1963. Langham has used it
for several subsequent productions, most recently in an adaptation
by
Stanley Silverman which expands
the score with some of Ellington's best-known works.
Ellington composed the score for the musical
Jump For Joy,
which was performed in Los Angeles during 1941. Ellington's sole
book musical,
Beggar's
Holiday, was staged on Broadway in 1946.
Sophisticated Ladies, an
award-winning 1981 musical revue, incorporated many tunes from his
repertoire.
Private life
Ellington married his high school sweetheart,
Edna Thompson, on July 2, 1918, when he was
19. Shortly after their marriage, on March 11, 1919 Edna gave birth
to their only son,
Mercer Kennedy
Ellington. Mercer played trumpet, led his own band and worked
as his father's business manager, eventually taking full control of
the band after Duke's death. He was an important archivist of his
father's musical life. Ellington's sister Ruth later ran Tempo
Music, Ellington' music publishing company.
Ellington's grandson Edward Ellington is a musician and maintains a
small salaried band known as the Duke Ellington Legacy, which
frequently comprises the core of the big band operated by The Duke
Ellington Center for the Arts.
Discography
Awards, honors and recognitions
Memorials
The grave of Duke Ellington
Numerous memorials have been dedicated to Duke Ellington, in cities
from New York and Washington, DC to Los Angeles.
In Ellington's birthplace of Washington, D.C., there is a school
dedicated to his honor and memory as well as one of the bridges
over Rock Creek Park. The
Duke Ellington School of the
Arts educates talented students, who are considering careers in
the arts, by providing intensive arts instruction and strong
academic programs that prepare students for post-secondary
education and professional careers.
The Calvert Street Bridge was renamed the
Duke
Ellington Bridge
; built in 1935, it connects Woodley
Park
to Adams
Morgan
.
On February 24, 2009, the
United
States Mint launched a new coin featuring Duke Ellington,
making him the first African-American to appear by himself on a
circulating U.S. coin.
Ellington appears on the reverse ("tails")
side of the District of
Columbia quarter. The coin is
part of the U.S. Mint's program honoring the
District and the U.S. territories and celebrates Ellington's
birthplace in the District of Columbia. Ellington is depicted on
the quarter seated at a piano, sheet music in hand, along with the
inscription "Justice for All", which is the District's motto.
Ellington lived for years in a townhouse on the corner of
Manhattan's
Riverside
Drive and West 106th Street. After his death, West 106th Street
was officially renamed Duke Ellington Boulevard.
A large memorial to
Ellington, created by sculptor Robert Graham, was dedicated in
1997 in New York's Central
Park
, near Fifth Avenue
and 110th
Street, an intersection named Duke Ellington
Circle.
Although
he made two more stage appearances before his death, Ellington
performed what is considered his final "full" concert in a ballroom
at Northern
Illinois University
on March 20, 1974. The hall was renamed the
Duke Ellington Ballroom in 1980.
A statue
of Ellington at a piano is featured at the entrance to UCLA
's Schoenberg Hall. According to UCLA
magazine, "When UCLA students were entranced by Duke Ellington's
provocative tunes at a Culver City club in 1937, they asked the
budding musical great to play a free concert in Royce Hall
. 'I've been waiting for someone to ask us!'
Ellington exclaimed".
"On the
day of the concert, Ellington accidentally mixed up the venues and
drove to USC
instead. He eventually arrived at the UCLA
campus and, to apologize for his tardiness, played to the packed
crowd for more than four hours. And so, "Sir Duke" and his group
played the first-ever jazz performance in a concert venue."
He is one of only five jazz musicians ever to have been featured on
the cover of
Time (the other
four being
Louis Armstrong,
Thelonious Monk,
Wynton Marsalis, and
Dave Brubeck).
The
Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and
Festival is a nationally renowned annual competition for
prestigious high school bands.
Started in 1996 at Jazz at
Lincoln Center
, the festival is named after Ellington because of
the large focus that the festival places on his works.
Tributes
- Sathima Bea Benjamin - the
South African vocalist wrote "Gift of Love", in memory of Duke
Ellington, for her 1987 album Love Light.
- Dave Brubeck - dedicated "The Duke"
(1954) to Ellington and it became a standard covered by others,
both during Ellington's lifetime (such as by Miles Davis on Miles
Ahead, 1957) and posthumously (such as George Shearing on I Hear a Rhapsody: Live
at the Blue Note, 1992). The album The Real Ambassadors has a vocal
version of this piece, You Swing Baby (The Duke), with
lyrics by Iola Brubeck, Dave's wife. It is performed as a duet
between Louis Armstrong and Carmen McRae. It is also dedicated to Duke
Ellington.
- Tony Bennett frequently altered the
lyrics to "Lullaby of Broadway" in live performance, to sing, "You
rock-a-bye your baby 'round/to Ellington or Basie," as a personal
tribute to the two jazz masters.
- Judy Collins - wrote "Song For
Duke" in 1975, and included it on her album Judith.
- Miles Davis - one month after
Ellington's death, created his half-hour dedicated dirge "He Loved
Him Madly" (1974) collected on Get Up
with It.
- The jazz-influenced band Steely Dan
recorded a note-for-note version of an early Ellington standard,
"East St. Louis Toodle-oo," on their album Pretzel Logic, released in 1974, using
treated slide guitars to re-create the plunger-muted "jungle sound"
of the original Ellington horns.
- Stevie Wonder - wrote the song
"Sir Duke" as a tribute to Ellington in
1976.
- Charles Mingus - composed "Open
Letter to Duke" and "Duke Ellington's Sound of Love"
- Lorraine Feather - has composed
lyrics to many of Ellington's instrumental compositions,recorded on
CD's including "Dooji Wooji" and "Such Sweet Thunder."
- The Modern Jazz Quartet
composed two original Ellington tributes for their album For
Ellington.
There are hundreds of albums dedicated to the music of Duke
Ellington and Billy Strayhorn by artists famous and obscure. The
more notable artists include
Sonny
Stitt,
Thelonious Monk,
Dizzy Gillespie,
Tony Bennett,
Claude
Bolling,
Oscar Peterson,
Toshiko Akiyoshi,
Dick Hyman,
Joe Pass,
Milt Jackson,
Earl Hines,
André
Previn,
World Saxophone
Quartet,
Ben Webster,
Zoot Sims,
Kenny
Burrell,
Lambert,
Hendricks and Ross,
Martial Solal,
Clark Terry and
Randy Weston.
Homage from critics
Gunther Schuller wrote, "Ellington
composed incessantly to the very last days of his life. Music was
indeed his mistress; it was his total life and his commitment to it
was incomparable and unalterable. In jazz he was a giant among
giants. And in twentieth century music, he may yet one day be
recognized as one of the half-dozen greatest masters of our
time."
Martin Williams said "Duke Ellington
lived long enough to hear himself named among our best composers.
And since his death in 1974, it has become not at all uncommon to
see him named, along with
Charles Ives,
as the greatest composer we have produced, regardless of
category."
In 2002, scholar
Molefi Kete
Asante listed Duke Ellington on his list of
100 Greatest African
Americans.
Andre Previn said, "You know,
Stan Kenton can stand in front of a thousand
fiddles and a thousand brass and make a dramatic gesture and every
studio arranger can nod his head and say, ‘‘Oh, yes, that’s done
like this.’’ But Duke merely lifts his finger, three hornsmake a
sound, and I don’t know what it is!"
Awards
Grammy Awards
Ellington earned 13 Grammy awards from 1959 to 2000, nine while he
was alive.
| Duke Ellington Grammy Award History |
| Year |
Category |
Title |
Genre |
Result |
| 1999 |
Historical Album |
The Duke Ellington Centennial Edition
RCA Victor Recordings (1927-1973)
|
Jazz |
Winner |
| 1979 |
Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band |
Duke Ellington At Fargo, 1940 Live |
Jazz |
Winner |
| 1976 |
Best Jazz Performance By A Big Band |
The Ellington Suites |
Jazz |
Winner |
| 1972 |
Best Jazz Performance By A Big Band |
Toga Brava Suite |
Jazz |
Winner |
| 1971 |
Best Jazz Performance By A Big Band |
New Orleans Suite |
Jazz |
Winner |
| 1968 |
Best Instrumental Jazz Performance - Large Group
Or Soloist With Large Group
|
...And His Mother
Called Him Bill |
Jazz |
Winner |
| 1967 |
Best Instrumental Jazz Performance, Large Group
Or Soloist With Large Group
|
Far East Suite |
Jazz |
Winner |
| 1966 |
Best Original Jazz Composition |
In The Beginning God |
Jazz |
Winner |
| 1965 |
Best Instrumental Jazz Performance -
Large Group Or Soloist With Large Group
|
Ellington '66 |
Jazz |
Winner |
| 1959 |
Best Performance By A Dance Band |
Anatomy of a Murder |
Pop |
Winner |
| 1959 |
Best Musical Composition First Recorded
And Released In 1959
(More Than 5 Minutes Duration)
|
Anatomy of a Murder |
Composing |
Winner |
| 1959 |
Best Sound Track Album - Background Score
From A Motion Picture Or Television
|
Anatomy of a Murder |
Composing |
Winner |
|
Grammy Hall of Fame
Recordings of Duke Ellington were inducted into the
Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a
special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that
are at least twenty-five years old, and that have "qualitative or
historical significance."
Honors and inductions
Ellington on the Washington, D.C. quarter released in 2009.
Notes
References
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Further reading
- Collier, James Lincoln. Duke Ellington, Oxford University Press, 1987. ISBN
0-19-503770-7
- Dailey, Raleigh. "Ellington as a Composer for the Piano," in
Jazz Research Proceedings Yearbook, #31 (Jan.2001),
pp. 151–156.
- Dance, Stanley. The World Of Duke Ellington, ISBN
0-306-80136-1
- Ellington, Duke. Music Is My Mistress, ISBN
0-7043-3090-3
- Ellington, Mercer K. Duke Ellington In Person,
Houghton Mifflin, 1978. ISBN
0-395-25711-5
- Ellington, Mercer K. Fast Facts. Duke Ellington.25 CMG WorldWide. February 1, 2007
- Hasse, John Edward. Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of
Duke Ellington, Simon &
Schuster, 1993. ISBN 0-671-70387-0
- Gilles Tordjman, François Billard, Duke Ellington,
Le Seuil, Paris, 1994. ISBN
978-2020137003
- Tucker, Mark. Ellington, The Early Years, University of Illinois Press,
1991. ISBN 0-252-01425-1
- Ulanov, Barry. Duke Ellington, Creative Age Press,
1946.
Reference works
- Massagli, Luciano and Volonté, Giovanni. The New Desor:
Duke Ellington's Story on Records Parts One and Two, 1999,
Milan, Italy. Privately published two part discography with no ISBN
number. The most comprehensive Ellington discography for sessions
and record issues.
- Stratemann, Dr. Klaus. Duke Ellington: Day by Day and Film
by Film, 1992. ISBN 87-88043-34-7 Covers all of Duke's travels
and films from the 1929 short film Black and Tan
onwards
- Timner, W.E.. Ellingtonia: The Recorded Music of Duke
Ellington and His Sidemen, 2007. ISBN 0-8108-5889-4 Has a
unique discography of Ellington's sidemen.
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