Edward Kennedy Ellington -  1899 to 1974.  I've chosen another great one to tell you about, Jazz fans.  I know it's tough coming after Louis Armstrong, but if there is any individual in Jazz whose work and legacy can equal that of the mighty “Satchmo,” that person would have to be Duke Ellington.  Duke and Satchmo were in every way contemporaries with legendary careers, so I have to say it's a pleasure putting pen to paper about Duke.

Duke Ellington was born in Washington D.C. on April 29th, just before the turn of the century to James Edward Ellington and Daisy Kennedy Ellington, and he was an only child until age 16.  His mother, a light skinned creole lady, had survived the sinking of a ferry boat that she was on when she was pregnant with Duke.  She told her son about this frightening incident many times and kept  telling her son just how blessed he was, as well as instilling in him a deep sense of self worth and self assurance.

Young Edward responded to the doting affection of his parents, especially his mother, and from the beginning had great pride in himself and his talents.  He also dressed extremely well.  As a matter of fact he was the very epitome of sartorial elegance all his life, hence the name “Duke.”

There is probably no greater American composer, arranger, and band leader.  His chosen individual instrument was the piano, but his real instrument was the entire band, a big band that lasted, with varying members, for fifty years, and a big band which not only defined the Swing Era, but also reached the pinnacle of such musical groupings and stayed and stayed at the top of the heap.

Duke Ellington is now universally recognized as the finest, the most celebrated and the most critically acclaimed of all Jazz composers.  He studied piano as a child, becoming a student of African American composers Will Marion Cook and Will Vodery.  He was determined from a very early age to create music that reflected his own heritage and was not a pale imitation of European conventions.  He was also influenced by the stride pianists James P. Johnson and Willie “the Lion” Smith, but he developed his own elliptical style while becoming increasingly interested in exploring a Jazz band's full palette of sounds through the personalities and talents of the musicians in his band.

At age 25 he led his first group, the Washingtonians, but soon he put together his Famous Orchestra, which had a long residency at the Cotton Club in Harlem.  Regular radio broadcasts of his already unique and exciting big band performances established his national reputation by 1930.

By this time Duke had one son, Mercer, also a musician and composer, as well as a reputation as a dapper ladies' man.  I like to refer to what he used to say to beautiful women:  “Gee, you make that dress look pretty.”  No wonder women rushed him.  But Duke was also a complex and introspective individual, and as his public persona grew, he became a very private person.

He loved to scribble all his new compositions on boats, trains, and planes, and he pushed himself on and on to greater heights of creativity.  He employed the improvisatory essence of Jazz as a major stylistic component of all his work, while at the same time shaping a sound for his musicians that made his Orchestra instantly recognizable for brilliant ensemble playing.

In “The Chronicle of Jazz” Mervyn Cooke puts it very well:  Ellington “assembled a remarkable corpus of talented instrumentalists whose qualities he exploited not only by showcasing them in dynamic solo passages, but also by joining them in astonishingly varied and colorful combinations of a kind never before heard in Jazz.”

I must pause here to relate that Duke did not like the term “Jazz.”  In the 1920's and '30s this word still had negative connotations because the music originated in speakeasies and brothels in New Orleans.  Actually history tells us that the word was first “Jass,” and it had hot connotations associated with “illicit” sex and misbehavior.  Duke at first referred to his music as American Negro Music, but as time went on more respectability came for this most original and American of art forms.

One amazing detail which characterizes the phenomenal success and longevity of Duke Ellington and His Orchestra is that he paid his musicians very well even for that time which included the Great Depression, and as well he allowed them an extremely wide range to showcase their individual talents and improvisational skills.  That's why they stayed so long!  And the one who gets the prize is baritone saxophonist Harry Carney, who stayed with Ellington for almost fifty years, even becoming Duke's chauffeur for many years.

Other sidemen are almost too numerous to mention, but some names would have to include Johnny Hodges on alto sax, (Puerto Rican) Juan Tizol on valve trombone, Cootie Williams on trumpet, Rex Stewart on cornet and Lawrence Brown on trombone.  Others I'll have to mention when discussing the music.

It must be shared too that Duke was the first composer to break away from the time limitations imposed by 78 rpm discs, which could only accommodate about three minutes of music on each side.  Duke did many brilliant extended compositions, a few of which I will mention later.

In the 1930s and '40s Duke and his band toured the world, and in the 1950s and '60s Duke and his writing collaborator/musical soulmate Billy Strayhorn composed a number of suites.  Later, after Strayhorn's death in 1967, Duke composed three spiritual pieces called the Sacred Concerts.

In 1973 Duke published his autobiography “Music is My Mistress,” in which he reminisced about his various musicians, their talent and their loyalty.  Together they all created the Ellington sound, an easily distinguishable and superb sound, which had the ability to pull from various sources and to evolve with changing times and tastes in order to stay at the top of the Jazz world.

On Duke's death in 1974, Mercer took over the Ellington Orchestra.  Mercer's daughter Mercedes is a well-known choreographer, and his sons Edward and Paul have played in and conducted the Orchestra respectively, right up until today.  What a legacy!

The Duke Ellington discography can only be described as vast - everything from ballads, swing anthems, big band blowing fests, small group sessions, concertos and suites. In “The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD” the Ellington entry takes up some twenty-two pages.

I may not be right in terms of chronological order of composition, but my pick to start the music has to be “Solitude.”  This beautiful orchestral composition will always be very special for me, as it was the signature tune for disc jockey Ron Cusner's Jazz program on radio in Milwaukee, Wisconsin back in 1980 when I first discovered the world of Jazz.  Cusner's Jazz show called “The Dark Side” came on at midnight, and being a night person as a graduate student, I was hooked once I heard “Solitude” and many other standards.

I follow up with recordings from The Blanton-Webster Band, so called because of the two excellent band members that were added to Duke's orchestra in 1939.  The Blanton-Webster Band is considered by many to be Duke's best lineup, and humbly I have to agree.  (Including Duke it was fifteen of them.)   Duke's already wonderful group was joined by Ben Webster, an ace tenor saxophonist who brought a deep and sensuous tone to the horn section;  as well as by Jimmie Blanton, the twenty year old bassist who brought a melodic approach to bass playing that helped the band swing like crazy.  Tragically, after merely about two years with the band, Jimmie, a tall and handsome young man, contracted tuberculosis and died in July 1942.

You can imagine my delight when I found the 3 CD set called “Never No Lament – The Blanton Webster Band” in a Miami record store.  My favorites from this first class set of recordings are:  from Volume 1 “Me and You” with the vocal by Ivie Anderson. This piece is literally swing heaven.  Also the title track “Never No Lament” which is also known as “Don't Get Around Much Any More,” is lovely. Duke takes an understated solo, backed up by the band, which had never sounded better. 

From Volume 2 comes the “anthem” and signature tune “Take the A Train,” probably hands down Duke's best known piece.  It was actually composed by Billy Strayhorn from some notes Duke had given him on how to get to Harlem. The band did very many versions over the years, but I love the Blanton-Webster version best;  its crispness and irresistible swing just can't be beat.

I also give honorable mention to “Pitter Panther Patter,” which features a bass and piano duet between Jimmie Blanton and Duke - fun and interesting.  Of course I can't leave out “Bakiff,” composed by Latin trombone master and Duke band-member Juan Tizol.  And finally a surprise good-one is “Are You Sticking?” The mighty swing on this number sees all band-members outdoing themselves.  Saxophonist Barney Bigard does the solo honors here.

Volume 3 features, among all its hits, a few favorites too.  “Jump For Joy” features a simpatico vocal by Herb Jeffries, and the standard “Perdido,” later famous, was contributed once more by Juan Tizol.  The Blanton-Webster Band is essential listening.

I can only mention in passing other hits like “It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing,” the favorite of young Jayton Wright of Biscayne Village, “Prelude To A Kiss,” “Mood Indigo,” and, from in the 1950's, “Satin Doll.”  I want to just mention too Duke's performance of “The Feeling of Jazz” from his album with John Coltrane in 1962 - a nice selection in small group session and with the one and only 'Trane.  The cognoscenti will pillory me for leaving out so many other favorites, but as I say this is just a snapshot.

Penultimately, I talk about Duke's extended composition “Black, Brown and Beige.”  This suite was introduced at Duke's 1943 Carnegie Hall Concert.  It is 57 minutes in duration and has three movements, as the title suggests.  I've enjoyed this piece over the years, and I'm sure you would too.  Back then some critics didn't know what to make of it.  Perhaps if the composer had been white and it had not been classified as a “Jazz” suite, acceptance would have been easier.  One critic opined:  “The whole attempt to fuse jazz as a form with art music should be discouraged.”  There were, however, several progressive commentators who knew greatness when they heard it.  One of them answered: “Jazz will continue to take a beating as long as such reactionaries continue to pour forth such stupid, intolerable drivel.”

I want to conclude with another well-known standard “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue.”

Duke composed this selection prior to 1956, but he decided to feature it at his band's live performance at the Newport Jazz Festival that year.  It caused a sensation when tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves did 27 choruses as the soloist with the band egging him on.  A platinum blonde in a black dress and in the front row got up and started to dance, adding to the excitement that nearly ended in a riot.

This Ellington triumph gave a huge boost to the band and to his career (and that of Paul to boot), and Duke was featured on the cover of TIME magazine.  “Ellington At Newport” became the bestselling record of his career.  I assure fans that it's something else to hear!

More talk of Duke's greatness would be overstatement.  Let me just end with a little story from his later years.  Duke had been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1965.  Incredibly the jurors of the Committee passed him over and did not give him this prestigious award.  The San Francisco Chronicle called the Pulitzer Board's decision “an appalling insult.”  When Duke got the news, he was 66 years old at the time and a towering figure of Jazz.  He responded with his characteristic ironic humor, and his response has been widely quoted ever since:  “Fate is being kind to me.  Fate doesn't want me to be too famous too young.”

Duke did go on to receive numerous other awards and citations.  His music, as I have insisted, is absolutely essential for fans, students, or anyone with even a passing interest in the music of the twentieth century.  I “jump for joy” to listen to his beautiful Jazz and to think what a special gift he was to have lived and to have left us such an incredible body of music.

(As usual I've used multiple sources for reference.  I do, however, want to acknowledge “Duke Ellington – A Spiritual Biography” by Janna Tull Steed for some valuable information.)