Duke Ellington
There are only two kinds of music, he said: good music and bad music.
At a glance 🔭💭
Some coordinates adapted from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · Pleiades (CC BY 3.0)
The people around him ⏳🌊
- FamilyDaisy Kennedy Ellington
She was the mother who instilled in him good manners and self-assurance.
- InfluenceSidney Bechet
He briefly joined the early band and showed it the daring of improvisation.
- PatronageIrving Mills
As manager he drove the publicity and the tours, but he also took a share of the royalties.
- ColleagueBilly Strayhorn
He became a lifelong collaborator in arranging and composing.
- ColleagueJohnny Hodges
On alto saxophone, he long carried the band's lyrical tone.
- FriendshipLouis Armstrong
Recording together in 1961, they set down their long mutual admiration in music.
I. A boy from Washington · 1899–1917 (age 0–18)
(Washington) He was born in April 1899 in Washington, D.C. His father, James Edward Ellington, was a butler who at one time even helped with the cooking and service at White House functions, and who later made his living drafting blueprints at the Navy Yard. A childhood spent in the atmosphere of Washington, where a Black middle class had taken root, would later find expression in his dignified bearing and his fondness for formality. (Mother) His mother, Daisy Kennedy Ellington, was a deeply devout woman who set great store by manners; she doted on her only son and carefully taught him how to dress and how to speak. He later recalled that she always told him he was a special child, and said those words became the root of his lifelong self-confidence. (Nickname) Around the age of eight, his friend Edgar McEntree, struck by his elegant clothes and aristocratic manner, began calling him 'Duke,' and the nickname followed him for the rest of his life. (Piano) He took piano lessons at about seven, but he was more interested in baseball and neglected the keyboard. As a teenager, hearing local ragtime pianists changed his attitude; he studied harmony with Henry Grant and began writing tunes of his own. (Drawing) While at Armstrong Manual Training High School, his talent for art earned him the offer of a scholarship to the Pratt Institute, but his heart was set more firmly on music, and in the end he left school without a diploma. The money he made painting signs and posters during this period became his first business venture.
II. To New York · 1918–1926 (age 19–27)
(Marriage) In 1918 he married Edna Thompson, whom he had known since high school. Their son Mercer was born the following year. Mercer grew up to study trumpet and composition, went on to play in his father's orchestra, and later led a band of his own. (Band) In the early years of his marriage he led a small group in Washington called 'Duke's Serenaders,' playing at parties and dances. Drummer Sonny Greer, alto saxophonist Otto Hardwick, and trumpeter Arthur Whetsel, who played with him at this time, became colleagues who stood by his orchestra for many years. (New York) In 1923 he moved to New York and joined the 'Washingtonians,' led by banjoist Elmer Snowden. When Snowden left the band around 1924, he took over as leader, kept the name, and built it into his own orchestra. (Encounter) Around this time the soprano saxophone virtuoso Sidney Bechet briefly joined the band and played alongside him. He later recalled being deeply impressed by the daring and sheer presence of Bechet's improvisation, and said it set him thinking about ways of arranging that would let individual voices come through within the ensemble. (Livelihood) As he moved from club to club in Harlem building his reputation, money was tight. "East St. Louis Toodle-oo," recorded in 1926, was built around the growling tone of trumpeter Bubber Miley, and it was the first piece to show clearly the character of the band in those still-obscure days.
From the still-unknown Washingtonians days, this is the piece in which Bubber Miley's colors first revealed the band's identity.
- In the introduction, Bubber Miley's trumpet uses a mute to produce a growling sound (the growl) that sets the piece's dark coloring.
- The whole piece is built on a give-and-take structure (call and response), with instruments taking turns passing a set melody back and forth.
- Joe Nanton's trombone, using a mute opened and closed by hand (a plunger mute), produces inflections like human speech.
- A slow, march-like rhythm repeats, offering a prototype of the early sound that came to be called the jungle style.
III. The Cotton Club era · 1927–1931 (age 28–32)
(Arrival) In December 1927 he reached the turning point of his life when he became the house band at Harlem's Cotton Club. Night after night, his performances at this whites-only club were broadcast nationwide on the radio, and his name began to spread far and wide. (Jungle) Bubber Miley on trumpet and Joe Nanton (Tricky Sam) on trombone used mutes to create growling sounds like human voices, perfecting the so-called 'jungle style.' "Black and Tan Fantasy" from this period translated into music the exotic, dramatic atmosphere the Cotton Club stage demanded. (Manager) The businessman Irving Mills signed on as his manager, handling contracts and publicity. Mills put his own name on many songs as co-composer and took a share of the royalties; this practice, common at the time between Black musicians and white managers, worked against him, yet it also became the springboard that carried the band to national tours and film appearances. (Records) "Mood Indigo," recorded in 1930, won great popularity with its distinctive harmony layering trumpet, muted trombone, and low-register clarinet, and it established him not merely as a club bandleader but as a composer.
The piece that, on the Cotton Club stage, marked him as a composer rather than merely a club bandleader.
- A distinctive chord arrangement (voicing) layering trumpet, muted trombone, and low-register clarinet creates a melancholy, blue coloring.
- The melody is simple, yet each instrument enters quietly in its own register, as if seeping in.
- The slow tempo and spare scoring let you hear the weight of the silence between the sounds.
- Rerecorded in many different scorings over the following decades, it became a symbol of the Ellington sound.
IV. The height of the swing era · 1932–1942 (age 33–43)
(Touring) Even after leaving the Cotton Club, he widened his tours across the United States and on to Europe. On southern tours he was so often refused hotel rooms that, it is said, he rented private railroad cars to travel in and slept aboard them. Though he felt the reality of segregation firsthand, he recalled believing that showing the dignity and skill of Black musicians onstage was itself a form of resistance. (Strayhorn) In 1939 the young composer Billy Strayhorn joined the band. The two soon became inseparable collaborators, and Strayhorn was so deeply involved in arranging and composing that he was called Ellington's alter ego. "Take the A Train," recorded in 1941, was a piece completed by Strayhorn's hand, and it went on to become the band's signature. (Blanton-Webster) In 1939 and 1940, bassist Jimmy Blanton and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster joined, and the band entered its heyday, known as the 'Blanton-Webster band.' "Ko-Ko," recorded in 1940, is regarded as a concentrated showcase of Blanton's melodic bass playing and the cohesion of the whole ensemble. (Family) From around this time his younger sister, Ruth Ellington, helped with his music publishing business and managed it at his side for many years. At home, he and Edna remained effectively separated, though the two stayed legally married.
A piece that compresses into just over 3 minutes how completely the rhythm section changed once Jimmy Blanton came aboard.
- Over a minor blues (12-bar) form, it builds taut tension from the very start.
- Jimmy Blanton's bass moves melodically, going beyond simple accompaniment, and is credited with changing the character of the rhythm section.
- The trombones and saxophones stack up short, intense rhythmic phrases (riffs), driving toward the climax.
- In a short span, it distills the density of the arrangement and the ensemble power of the whole band.
Written by Billy Strayhorn, it shows best what the two men's collaboration could produce.
- It is distinguished by a buoyant opening riff that sets to music the directions to take the A line of the subway to Harlem.
- A tightly constructed swing tune in 32-bar AABA form.
- Ray Nance's trumpet solo varies the theme buoyantly and drives the piece's energy.
- It went on to become the band's signature tune and the opening theme of its concerts.
V. Carnegie Hall and expansion · 1943–1950 (age 44–51)
(Carnegie Hall) In January 1943 he gave his first solo concert at New York's Carnegie Hall and premiered the ambitious “Black, Brown and Beige.” A suite of some forty minutes tracing the history of Black Americans from slavery to the present day, it carried his long-held wish to be recognized as a serious composer rather than a purveyor of dance-hall music. (Reception) The critics, it is said, were divided. Some praised a jazz orchestra for daring a large-scale work in classical form, while others found its structure diffuse. He nonetheless returned to Carnegie Hall year after year, continuing to attempt works of grand scale. (Finances) As the big-band era waned after the end of the Second World War, more and more orchestras found the cost of touring beyond them. He too faced shrinking fees and frequent departures from the band, but he is said to have poured his composer's royalties into keeping his orchestra together rather than disbanding it. (Companion) From around 1938 he shared his life with Beatrice Ellis, known as ‘Evie,’ who remained at his side for the rest of his days. Caught between his ambition for large works and the band's dwindling finances, he chose, his colleagues later recalled, to protect his music before his private life.
A work in which his ambition to be recognized as a serious composer, not merely a dance-hall bandleader, was put to the test on the Carnegie Hall stage.
- A large-scale work of some forty minutes, it portrays the history of Black Americans from slavery to the present day in three parts (Black, Brown and Beige).
- Rather than a single piece, it takes the form of a suite, in which a series of themes and musical ideas follow one another.
- Critics are said to have been divided at the Carnegie Hall premiere; the very attempt to graft classical form onto a jazz orchestra was itself contentious.
- Johnny Hodges's alto saxophone offers, in the lyrical passages, a tone that slides softly from note to note (glissando).
VI. The Newport revival · 1951–1960 (age 52–61)
(Slump) In the early 1950s public interest shifted to bebop and newer fashions, and the band's popularity faded. Several key members, Johnny Hodges among them, left to form small groups of their own, and amid financial strain the touring schedule had to be scaled back. (Hodges returns) Johnny Hodges rejoined the band in 1955 and stayed until his death; for years his alto saxophone sound served as the lyrical axis of the Ellington sound. (Newport) In July 1956, during a performance of “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue” at the Newport Jazz Festival, tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves tore through an improvised solo of twenty-seven choruses. The sight of the audience rising from their seats in a frenzy is counted among the most dramatic moments of Ellington's career. (Comeback) Thanks to that performance he was back in the public eye, enough to appear on the cover of Time that August, and the album capturing the concert was a great success. His contract with Columbia Records was secured as well, giving him financial breathing room at last.
This live performance on the Newport stage revived, in a single stroke, a career that had fallen into a slump.
- The climax comes as Paul Gonsalves's tenor saxophone spins out twenty-seven consecutive improvised passes through the tune (choruses), whipping the crowd into a frenzy.
- An arrangement that joined two originally separate pieces with Gonsalves's interlude solo heightened the spontaneity of the performance.
- The roar of the crowd mingles with the driving swing of the rhythm section, conveying a live heat unlike any studio recording.
- The success of this live album lifted him out of the obscurity into which he had slipped and marked his comeback.
VII. Sacred music and final years · 1961–1974 (age 62–75)
(Collaborations) In the 1960s he also recorded with musicians of other generations. In 1961 he made “Recording Together for the First Time” with Louis Armstrong, and in 1962 he held sessions with John Coltrane, with Coleman Hawkins, and with bassist Charles Mingus and drummer Max Roach, carrying on exchanges that crossed generations and styles. (Sacred music) In 1965 he gave his first ‘Sacred Concert’ at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Weaving jazz, choir and dance around religious themes, these concerts continued in 1968 and 1973, three in all, and he said he regarded them as the most important work he had ever done. (Loss) In May 1967 his longtime collaborator Billy Strayhorn died. Deeply shaken, he recorded a memorial album made up solely of Strayhorn's compositions, “...And His Mother Called Him Bill,” and the solo piano he played on the final track is said to have been unplanned. (Touring) Into the 1970s he kept touring the Soviet Union, the Near East and Latin America under the sponsorship of the U.S. State Department, playing and composing almost without pause despite his advancing age. (Death) On May 24, 1974, he died in New York of lung cancer and pneumonia. Thousands gathered for his funeral at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, listening to his music together as they bade him farewell.
Filled solely with Strayhorn's music and made just after his death, this album was a quiet tribute to half a century of collaboration.
- Dedicated to Billy Strayhorn and gathering only his compositions, the album was made just after his death and centers on lyrical ballads.
- The solo piano passage on the final track is said to have been unplanned, and it sounds like a quiet act of mourning.
- Solos by longtime band members, Johnny Hodges among them, bring out the harmonic colors of Strayhorn's writing.
- Slow, restrained tempos govern the whole, rather than showy arrangements.
Lesser-known stories
(Scores) He was not the kind of composer who sat down and wrote out a full score from beginning to end. Ideas that came to him on trains or in hotels while touring he jotted on napkins, hotel stationery or the backs of cigarette boxes, then completed them at the piano by dictating them to Billy Strayhorn or the band members. Only after his death, when the Smithsonian Institution catalogued tens of thousands of pages of his manuscripts, did the true extent of this working method, and of the works left unfinished, come to light. (Name) He is said to have disliked confining his music to the single word ‘jazz.’ In interviews he often asked that what he did be called simply ‘American music,’ which his biographers interpret as a refusal to confine his large-scale works within the boundaries of a genre. (Opera) Until his death he was planning an operatic stage work, “Queenie Pie,” centered on a Black businesswoman, but he never managed to finish it. The work reached the stage in 1986, after his death, through the hands of other musicians, and this unfinished ambition, almost unknown during his lifetime, has only recently drawn renewed attention from scholars.
Glossary 📚🔎
Growl
(Literal meaning) Growl is an English word that originally refers to the low rumbling sound a dog makes. (In jazz) It refers to a technique in which a wind player imitates the snarling sound of an angry person. Much like a furious cartoon character letting out a growl, trumpet or trombone players produce a similar effect using a special sound-altering device (mute) or by vibrating the throat.
Call and response
(Literal meaning) An English phrase combining call and response, the words themselves describe the method exactly. (In jazz) It refers to a give-and-take structure in which one side tosses out a short phrase and the other takes it up and plays as if answering. It is like a gym class where the teacher shouts a chant and the students shout it back. (Elsewhere) In church services, the practice of a minister and congregation reading responsively to one another is also called call and response.
Suite
(Literal meaning) Jogok (組曲) combines jo (組, 'to weave, assemble') and gok (曲, 'tune'), meaning several pieces woven together. The English word suite likewise comes from a French word meaning things that follow in sequence. (In jazz) It refers to a form in which several short pieces or themes follow one another under a single larger story or theme. It is like a comic book divided into several episodes that together make up one larger story. (Elsewhere) When a hotel speaks of a suite, it means a spacious room made up of several connected rooms.
Chorus
(In jazz) In improvisation, one complete pass through a tune from beginning to end is called a chorus. Like running one lap around a track, it is a unit counting one full trip through the set length of the tune, so when Paul Gonsalves went around this lap twenty-seven times, that is exactly what 27 choruses means.
Voicing
(Literal meaning) It comes from the word voice and refers to how several notes are stacked and sounded. (In jazz) Even the same chord changes color depending on which instrument takes which note in the stack, and this way of stacking is called voicing. It is like a choir, where the same song feels different depending on who takes the high notes and who takes the low ones.
Riff
(In jazz) A short, repeated melodic or rhythmic phrase. Like a cheer chanted over and over, a brief musical phrase is repeated many times to give a piece its drive. (Elsewhere) The expression is also used when someone plays variations on the same theme in conversation or writing, as in to riff on an idea.