Duke Ellington was born in Washington, D.C. on April 29, 1899 and died on May 24, 1974. Composer, band leader, and pianist, he was, for decades, a leading figure in big-band jazz, and is still considered the most significant composers of the genre.

He began studying piano when he was seven and was much influenced by professional pianists. He made his professional debut when he was just 17. Although his first visit to New York in early 1923 ended in financial failure, he took the advice of Fats Waller and returned later that year with Elmer Snowden's Washington Band to play at the Hollywood and Kentucky clubs on Broadway (1923-1927). This small group gradually enlarged to a ten-piece orchestra that made recordings of exceptional originality such as Toodle-oo and Black and Tan Fantasy. By this point, Ellington had gained much experience composing in a variety of musical categories such as dancing and production numbers, popular songs, "blue" and "mood" pieces, as well as "pure" instrumental jazz compositions.

During the 1930s, the group made over 200 recordings in New York, many of which were in the "jungle style," which was one of Ellington's and Bubber Miley's most individual creations. It consisted of a mixture of jazz and pseudo-African musical effects (pounding tom-toms, growling brass lines, "primitive" scales and unusual harmonies). The success of Mood Indigo (1930) brought Ellington international fame, and his work from 1932 to 1942 was, and still is, considered his most creative. 1

In 1943, Ellington began a series of annual concerts at Carnegie Hall with his monumental work Black, Brown and Beige, a "tone parallel" originally conceived in five sections and meant to portray the history of the black people in the U.S.A. through their music. It was at Oscar Peterson's first JATP performance at Carnegie Hall, in 1949, that Ellington and Peterson first met. After Ellington witnessed Peterson's "pianistic virtuosity" in his duo with Ray Brown, Ellington invited him out of the audience to perform with his own band. From that time, Ellington expressed great admiration for Oscar Peterson, calling him the "maharajah of the piano."  2

From 1950 on, Ellington continued to expand the scope of his compositions as his international tours became more frequent and successful, and, in 1959, he composed his first full-length film score for the film Anatomy of a Murder. In his last decade, Ellington wrote mostly liturgical music such as In the Beginning God, which was first performed at the Grace Cathedral in San Francisco in 1965. Several other "sacred services" followed, and Ellington continued to direct his band up until his death in 1974.

Duke Ellington was one of the first musicians to concern himself with composition and musical form in jazz, as distinct from improvisation, tune writing, and arranging. Acclaimed wherever he went in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Duke Ellington is renowned as one of the greatest jazz composers of all time, with an estimated 2000 compositions in his name.


Selected Recordings

Blue Belles of Harlem (1943)
Deep South Suite (1946)
Oscar Peterson Plays: The Duke Ellington Song Book (1959, Verve V-2055)
Latin American Suite (1968)
Symphony in Black (1935)

Footnotes

1 Kernfeld, Barry.   The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz.   London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1988.

2 Peterson, Oscar.   In Memorium - Duke Ellington, "The Man," Sound Magazine, November 1974.

O.P. & Friends