Edward Kennedy Ellington was born on April 29th, 1899 in Washington D.C. to two talented, musical parents in a middle-class neighborhood. Early in his childhood, he earned the nickname “Duke” for his charisma and aristocratic demeanor. This name stuck and most people today know him as Duke Ellington. Ellington’s father, James Edward Ellington, made blueprints for the U.S. Navy and served as a White House butler for extra income. Both of his parents were pianists and hoped that Duke would develop the same interest. They hoped that their son would learn piano and later exchange it for the church organ. At the age of seven, Ellington began to take piano lessons but showed little interest in music at first. He proved to be an uncooperative student and managed to get his way out of lessons after just a few months.
As Ellington grew older, he began to develop interests in drawing and painting. He even won a price from the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) for a poster design he created. He eventually was offered a scholarship to Pratt Institute, a prestigious art institute in Brooklyn, but decided to pass up on this opportunity in order to devote his time to music, specifically the piano. By the age of 15, Ellington had written his first two pieces, “Soda Fountain Rag” and “What You Gonna Do When the Bed Breaks down?” He later dropped out of school to pursue his musical career, playing in Jazz bands by night and supplementing his income by painting signs during the day. Sometimes, he even managed to persuade club owners to let him paint signs advertising his performances. Around the same time, Ellington married Edna Thompson who had become pregnant with their son, Mercer.
Ellington and his band, then known as the Washingtonians, began playing at local clubs and parties in Washington D.C., but moved to New York City in 1923. This was when Ellington’s popularity really ignited. During this time period, white supremacy was quickly, legally, and violently restored to the New South, where ninety percent of African Americans lived. African Americans migrated to the North in great numbers and relocated African Americans from the rural South to the urban North. This Great Migration ignited an explosion of cultural pride by the African American community in what is known as the Harlem Renaissance. Ellington and many others became right in the center of this cultural, social and artistic movement. It was not only musicians, but writers, artists, photographers, poets, and scholars as well. At first, Ellington secured steady work at the midtown Kentucky Club but later a three-year engagement at the popular Cotton Club. His colleagues and fellow Jazz musicians included Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Noble Sissie, Bessie Smith, Fats Waller, Bill Robinson, Ma Rainey, and Jelly Roll Morton. Eventually, Ellington was making a name for himself in Harlem as well as the rest of New York City. What made Ellington particularly stick out was that he sought out musicians with unique playing styles such as Joe Nanton who had a signature trombone “growl” and Bubber Miley who used a plunger to make the “wa-wa” sound. He would compose songs specifically for these musicians to bring out their uniqueness. Ellington made hundreds of recording with his band, appeared in films and on radio, and toured Europe on two occasions in the 1930s. Notable compositions by Ellington during this time period included “Black and Tan Fantasy” and “Love Creole,” both of which became jazz standards.
By the 1940s, Ellington’s fame soared even higher after composing masterworks such as “Concerto for Cootie”, “Cotton Tail” and “Ko-Ko.” He helped set up an annual jazz concert series at New York City’s Carnegie Hall that lasted from 1942 to 1955. Ellington was deeply involved with it each year and used the event to premier new, longer works of jazz that he composed. His first concert at the hall included Black, Brown, and Biege, a piece in three sections that represented symphonically the story of blacks in the United States. “Black” concerned the African American working class, “Brown” celebrated black soldiers who fought in the American wars, and “Biege” depicted the African American music of Harlem. An enigmatic and complicated work, it traces the history of an African named Boola through his arrival to America by slave ship, to his servitude in a strange and beautiful land, to his emancipation and eventually to his discovery of the blues. Ellington successfully created a musical representation of the hardships that his African American community suffered through. Though it was not a depiction of social injustice that is prominent between the wealthy and poor in New York City, it highlighted a different kind of social injustice: one of racial tensions. Other Carnegie Hall debuts included New World a-Coming’, about a black revolution to come after the end of World War II, and Liberian Suite, commissioned by the government of Liberia to honor its centennial.
Ellington’s audience was further broadened after his band’s triumph at the Newport Jazz Festival of 1956. Pieces such as “Diminuendo and Cresendo in Blue”, which highlighted improvisations of tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves, brought listeners to their feet. Within weeks, Ellington’s picture was on the cover of Time magazine and the record of the Newport concert sold in the hundreds of thousands, becoming Ellington’s biggest seller. Ellington continued to compose throughout the 1960s, writing scores for various motion pictures and even getting an Academy Award nomination for the score of 1961 film Paris Blues. He and his band started to perform jazz-style sacred music concerts in large cathedrals all throughout the world.
Duke Ellington was active as both a performer and composer until his death from lung cancer on May 24th, 1974 at the age of 75, in New York City, where his career had taken off. His compositions such as “Mood Indigo” and “In a Sentimental Mood” still remain jazz standards. People remember Ellington for his blend of melodies, rhythms, and subtle sonic movements which gave audiences a new experience. His last words were “Music is how I live, why I live, and how I will be remembered.”
Examples of Ellington’s Works:
Duke Ellington – It don’t mean a thing (1943)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDQpZT3GhDg
Duke Ellington- Mood indigo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GohBkHaHap8
Duke Ellington – Black, Brown & Beige
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