Duke Ellington
On the 29th of April 1899, Edward Kennedy Ellington entered the world in Washington, D.C., born to James and Daisy Ellington. His father worked as a butler for the United States Navy while his mother played parlor songs at home. The family lived at 2129 Ida Place NW within the West End neighborhood of the capital city. At age seven, young Duke began piano lessons with Marietta Clinkscales, though he often missed more classes than he attended. He found greater fascination in baseball games where Theodore Roosevelt sometimes stopped to watch children play from his horse. By fourteen years old, he sneaked into Frank Holiday's Poolroom to hear local pianists like Doc Perry and Luckey Roberts. These musicians ignited a passion that would eventually eclipse his initial interest in commercial art. In 1916, he turned down an art scholarship to Pratt Institute to pursue music full time. Three months before graduating from Armstrong Manual Training School, he dropped out to focus entirely on composition.
In October 1927, King Oliver declined a booking at Harlem's Cotton Club, passing the opportunity to Ellington after Jimmy McHugh suggested him. The engagement officially began on the 4th of December 1927, giving the orchestra weekly radio broadcasts that reached audiences across America. Trumpeter Bubber Miley joined the group and changed their sound from sweet dance band music to something hotter known as Jungle Style. His feature chorus in East St. Louis Toodle-Oo from 1926 exemplified this new direction with growl trumpet techniques. Adelaide Hall recorded Creole Love Call with Ellington in 1927, creating a worldwide sensation that became their first hit record. Miley composed most of both Creole Love Call and Black and Tan Fantasy before his death in 1932 at age twenty-nine. The orchestra performed all music for revues mixing comedy, dance numbers, vaudeville, burlesque, and illicit alcohol during these years. By 1930, they appeared in the Amos 'n' Andy film Check and Double Check featuring an extended ballroom scene playing Old Man Blues. Percy Grainger called them one of the three greatest composers who ever lived alongside Bach and Delius.
Billy Strayhorn originally hired as a lyricist began his association with Ellington in 1939 under the nickname Sweet Pea. He soon became a vital member of the organization serving as what Ellington described as my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head. Strayhorn contributed original lyrics and music while arranging and polishing many of Ellington's works to become a second Duke or doppelgänger. Their collaboration spanned nearly thirty-five years producing multiple extended compositions known as suites alongside short pieces. Black, Brown, and Beige debuted at Carnegie Hall on the 23rd of January 1943 telling the story of African Americans through slavery and church history. This work was dedicated to the place of slavery and the church in their history though it received mixed reception initially. The first of these extended pieces had already begun appearing before this partnership formed including Creole Rhapsody from 1931. A tribute to his mother named Reminiscing in Tempo took four 10-inch 78rpm record sides to record after her death in 1935. Symphony in Black also from 1935 featured his extended piece A Rhapsody of Negro Life which introduced Billie Holiday.
On the 7th of July 1956, Ellington appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival returning him to wider prominence after years of relative obscurity. The feature Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue comprised two tunes that had been in the band's book since 1937. Tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves delivered a twenty-seven-chorus marathon solo whipping the crowd into a frenzy during the performance. The concert made international headlines leading to one of only five Time magazine cover stories dedicated to a jazz musician. An album produced by George Avakian became the best-selling LP of Ellington's career despite being partially simulated with only about forty percent actually recorded live. The revived attention brought about by the Newport appearance should not have surprised anyone as Johnny Hodges had returned the previous year. In 1957 CBS aired a live television production of A Drum Is a Woman an allegorical suite receiving mixed reviews. Such Sweet Thunder based on Shakespeare's plays debuted in 1957 while The Queen's Suite dedicated to Britain's Queen Elizabeth II followed in 1958. He toured most of Western Europe between April 6 and the 30th of June 1950 playing seventy-four dates over seventy-seven days.
Anatomy of a Murder from 1959 marked the first significant Hollywood film music by African Americans comprising non-diegetic music whose source is not visible or implied by action in the film. The score avoided cultural stereotypes which previously characterized jazz scores rejecting strict adherence to visuals in ways that presaged New Wave cinema. Paris Blues from 1961 featured Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier earning Ellington an Academy Award nomination for Best Score. In September 1965 he premiered the first of his Sacred Concerts creating a jazz Christian liturgy despite receiving mixed reviews. He performed it dozens of times calling it the most important thing I've done though many saw these suites as attempts to reinforce commercial support for organized religion. Two other concerts of the same type followed in 1968 and 1973 known as the Second and Third Sacred Concerts. The Steinway piano upon which the Sacred Concerts were composed now resides in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Like Haydn and Mozart, Ellington conducted his orchestra from the piano always playing the keyboard parts when the Sacred Concerts were performed.
In 1969 President Nixon awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom representing the highest civilian award in the United States. Ellington was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1965 but no prize was ultimately awarded that year because the jury commended him for his body of work rather than a particular composition. In 1999 he received a posthumous Special Pulitzer Prize commemorating the centennial year of his birth recognizing his musical genius. This special citation honored how his work evoked aesthetically the principles of democracy through the medium of jazz making an indelible contribution to art and culture. He died on the 24th of May 1974 of complications from lung cancer and pneumonia at age seventy-five. His funeral attended by over twelve thousand people took place at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine where Ella Fitzgerald declared it a very sad day noting a genius had passed. Numerous memorials have been dedicated to Duke Ellington in cities ranging from New York and Washington D.C. to Los Angeles including a bronze plaque attached to the newly named building at 2121 Ward Place NW in 1989.
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Common questions
When and where was Duke Ellington born?
Edward Kennedy Ellington entered the world on the 29th of April 1899 in Washington, D.C. He lived at 2129 Ida Place NW within the West End neighborhood of the capital city.
What happened during Duke Ellington's performance at the Newport Jazz Festival on the 7th of July 1956?
Tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves delivered a twenty-seven-chorus marathon solo that whipped the crowd into a frenzy during the performance. The concert made international headlines leading to one of only five Time magazine cover stories dedicated to a jazz musician.
Who collaborated with Duke Ellington starting in 1939 under the nickname Sweet Pea?
Billy Strayhorn originally hired as a lyricist began his association with Ellington in 1939 under the nickname Sweet Pea. He soon became a vital member of the organization serving as what Ellington described as my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head.
Which film score by Duke Ellington earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Score in 1961?
Paris Blues from 1961 featured Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier earning Ellington an Academy Award nomination for Best Score. This work avoided cultural stereotypes which previously characterized jazz scores rejecting strict adherence to visuals in ways that presaged New Wave cinema.
When did Duke Ellington die and how old was he at the time of his death?
He died on the 24th of May 1974 of complications from lung cancer and pneumonia at age seventy-five. His funeral attended by over twelve thousand people took place at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine where Ella Fitzgerald declared it a very sad day noting a genius had passed.