By
Susan Robinson

“There is no art when one does something without intention.” – Duke Ellington. 

Duke Ellington made an indelible mark on American music during his fifty-year career as a composer and bandleader. 

Edward Kennedy Ellington was born on April 29, 1899 in Washington, D.C.  His father James Edward, who had once been a butler at the White House, and his mother, Daisy Kennedy Ellington, raised young Edward in a loving, middle class environment.  Both of his parents played the piano, but although Edward started taking piano lessons at the age of seven, he soon abandoned this pursuit and took up baseball, like many young boys.  As a teenager, Edward began to sneak out to go to a pool hall.  Washington, D.C. was home to the nation’s largest and most vibrant African American community during Ellington’s youth, and in this environment he was exposed to many types of people.  He also began to take an interest in the popular music of the day, ragtime.  (To access some links to ragtime audio file downloads, please see a previous article from this column about ragtime’s most successful composer, Scott Joplin.)  At the same time, Edward studied commercial art in a trade school and developed his painting skills; he had enough talent in art to be awarded an art scholarship.  

As a young teenager, Edward sought out ragtime performances.  At a performance by a popular pianist named Harvey Brooks, Edward was inspired.  Brooks showed young Ellington some tricks of the piano playing trade, and Ellington was hooked.  He resumed his study of the piano and wrote his first composition, “Soda Fountain Rag” at the age of fourteen.  By the time he was seventeen, Ellington was playing the piano at various nightclubs in Washington, D.C.  His friends thought his demeanor exuded an air of nobility (something he got from his father) and nicknamed him “Duke.”  He dropped out of high school three months before graduation to pursue his musical career full-time.  

His first group, The Duke’s Serenaders, was formed when Ellington was 18.  He married his high school sweetheart, Edna Thompson, and their only child, a son named Mercer Kennedy Ellington, was born in 1919.  In the early nineteen-twenties, the center of African American culture was shifting from Washington, D.C. to Harlem.  (Read more about the Harlem Renaissance by clicking here)  Ellington took a group of Washington, D.C. musicians with him when he moved to New York City in 1923.  They called themselves “The Washingtonians,” and the group included Sonny Greer, Otto Hardwicke, and trumpet player “Bubber” Miley.   Miley’s innovative style of playing involved muting the trumpet’s sound with a plunger-type device—this came to be known as the “Jungle Sound” and his inclusion in the band contributed greatly to its success.  

Duke Ellington was guided by well-known New York musicians like Willie “The Lion” Smith and “Fats” Waller.  From 1923 to 1927 (the height of the Prohibition Era), Ellington’s band played at the Club Kentucky.  His first record was “Choo Choo,” made in 1924.  In 1925 he composed two songs for an all-Black revue called “Chocolate Kiddies,” which toured Europe.  In 1927, Ellington really skyrocketed to the big time when he and his band landed a long-term gig at Harlem’s famed Cotton Club.  The Cotton Club was a segregated club, owned by top mobsters, where the customers were White and all the employees and performers were Black—it was the most fashionable nightclub in New York City.  The musical performances at the Cotton Club were broadcast weekly on national radio, bringing Ellington and his band instant popularity throughout the United States.  (For great full-length downloads from this era, click this link to http://www.redhotjazz.com/duke.html.  If you listen to something like “Swampy River”, you can hear how close this early jazz was to its ragtime roots.) 

Duke Ellington’s wife, Edna, and their son joined him in New York City in the late twenties, but he and Edna separated soon after and they never lived together again. 

Throughout his life, Duke Ellington wrote music prolifically.  His songs were written to evoke colors, moods, and memories.  In the nineteen-thirties, “hot jazz” began to evolve into swing, and Ellington composed the tune that would define the Swing Era, “ It Don’t Mean a Thing (If it Ain’t Got that Swing).”  Duke Ellington and his Orchestra changed and adapted with the times and changing styles of jazz and popular music.  Ellington consistently selected talented musicians to make up his orchestra; they included Ray Nance (trumpet), Jimmie Blanton (bass), and Ben Webster (saxophone).  In 1939 Ellington and his Orchestra were joined by a young composer, Billy Strayhorn.  Strayhorn’s “Take the ‘A’ Train” became a trademark song for the Orchestra, and Strayhorn became a collaborator with Ellington in songwriting.  Ellington described Strayhorn as his “right arm, …left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brain waves in his head, and his in mine.”  Their work partnership continued until Strayhorn’s death in 1967.  

Ellington and his Orchestra continued successfully for many years, until they experienced something of a dry spell after the end of World War II—the tides of popular music were turning again, as the Big Band Era came to a close.  Duke Ellington made a comeback at the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island in 1956.  After receiving critical acclaim at Newport and a cover photo on Time magazine, Ellington’s popularity was revived, and in addition to recording success, Ellington and his organization were much sought after by the motion picture industry to compose scores for movies.  

While works like “Mood Indigo” and “Sophisticated Lady” epitomize the Ellington sound to many jazz aficionados, Duke Ellington composed a wide variety of music.  His symphonic suite, “Black, Brown and Beige” did not meet with commercial success but was intended to depict the struggle of African American people in America.   Ellington was a spiritual person who traveled with a cross and a rosary; he wrote some sacred music during the 1960s and early seventies, first performed in San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral.  (Click here for examples of Ellington’s later jazz sound http://www.geocities.com/bourbonstreet/delta/8601/music.html)  

Ellington seemingly wished to steer clear of debates and commentary on matters of race relations, despite hardships that he and his orchestra of African Americans encountered traveling around the United States from the 1930s until the 1960s.  He did not believe in categorizing people.  Asked for an opinion on racial discrimination, he once replied, ”I took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues”—clearly the driving force throughout Ellington’s life was the desire to create music.  When asked what his favorite compositions were, he always answered, “the next five coming up.”  He was working on a composition in the hospital days before he died at the age of seventy-five.  He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery and two years later his longtime companion, Evie Ellis, was buried beside him.  Ellington’s son, Mercer, took over the orchestra when his father passed away.    

Duke Ellington received many honors during his lifetime, including Grammy awards, seventeen honorary doctorates and numerous awards from foreign heads of state.  The nation’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, was awarded to Ellington by President Richard M. Nixon, who described him as “America’s foremost composer.” 

Duke Ellington on love: “Love is indescribable and unconditional.  I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is.  Either you have it or you haven’t; there’s no proof of it.” []

Susan Robinson