Sophisticated Lady - Duke Ellington and his orchestra

My Orchestra and I Preforming In Copenhagen

Duke Ellington, orch. "Sophisticated Lady - Duke Ellington and His Orchestra." Rec. 1965-1971. Duke Ellington Orchestra. 1965-1971. MIDI.

Produced in Copenhagen.

A Centennial Tribute To Duke Ellington

During his lifetime, Duke Ellington was widely regarded as an ambassador of American music and culture. This unique status was attributed to his combined talents of orchestration and band leading, coupled with his charismatic personality and magnanimous presence.  Undeniably one of the most important composers in the history of jazz, with an estimated two thousand compositions, arrangements, and collaborations to his credit, Ellington's career greatly influenced the rise of the jazz band.

Born Edward Kennedy Ellington on April 29, 1899,  in Washington, DC, Duke began piano lessons at age six. He wrote his first composition, "Soda Fountain Rag," at age fourteen, while working as a soda jerk.  He began playing professionally at seventeen.  His parents expected him to accept a fine arts scholarship at Pratt to study painting, but he chose instead to devote himself to jazz.  In 1919 he and a few friends formed a small band, Duke's Serenaders, which expanded and moved to New York City in 1923 as The Washingtonians. A year later, when Ellington took charge of the quintet, his career as a bandleader was firmly established. As jazz bands grew in size, Ellington had the opportunity to move from the spontaneous improvisation of a simple theme to more creative orchestration with unique combinations of tone quality. With more musicians to coordinate, Ellington paid careful attention to structure and balance in his jazz arrangements, while still allowing for solo improvisations.  Unlike his contemporaries, Ellington drew instruments from different sections of the band and voiced them together as a unit,  generating fresh musical sounds.  He also employed wordless female vocalists as another tone color.

As an inspired coach and kind-hearted leader, Ellington willingly showcased his musicians and enabled them, in turn, to make a strong impact on jazz styles for their particular instruments.  This is borne out by Hodges' approach to alto saxophone ballad interpretation, Blanton's method of horn like solo lines played pizzicato on bass, and Ben Webster's tenor saxophone approach.

Ellington's piano style influenced Thelonious Monk, a leading modern jazz composer-pianist, while Ellington's arranging concepts were assimilated by Gil Evans, Thad Jones, George Russell, Clare Fischer, Charles Mingus, Sun Ra, and other significant modern composers. Although Ellington's forte was jazz and his big-band pieces were best known, he also wrote for the Broadway stage, ballets, operas, films and church services. The latter works were scored for symphony orchestra, choruses, and dancers.                                                                                                                                             

In his 1973 autobiography, Music Is My Mistress, Ellington said, "My men and my race are the inspiration of my work. I try to catch the character and mood and feeling of my people."  Even though he wrote out of the African American experience, Ellington's music was received around the world as the proliferation of jazz groups and societies such as Japan's Far East Ellington Lovers (FEEL) Jazz Orchestra attest. Taken as a whole, Ellington's musical contribution was "beyond category" since he "converted the actual texture of American life into first-rate, universally appealing music," as literary scholar Albert Murray observed. Edward Kennedy Ellington died in New York City on May 24, 1974.  Several of the  biographical and critical works published since his death are listed in the bibliography at the end of this web page. Budding scholars who want to assess his works for themselves are encouraged to visit the Smithsonian Institution which houses the Duke Ellington Collection of manuscripts and memorabilia.

 References:
Ellington, Duke. "The Composer on His Work" Christian Science Monitor, 10 June 1968; reprint, 25 November 1998, Anniversary supplement, p13.
"Ellington, Duke" Encyclopædia Britannica Online 9 March 1999 http://www.eb.com:180/bol/topic?eu=33004&sctn=1
Jazz Facts from the New York Times http://www.j51.com/~jayl/jazz/jazzfacts.html
Spotlight Biography: Jazz & Blues http://educate.si.edu/spotlight/blues.html
 
ARTIFACTS, MEMORABILIA, MANUSCRIPTS

Duke Ellington: An American Treasure
http://www.150.si.edu/150trav/remember/r1012.htm
The Ellington Archives
http://www.si.edu/organiza/museums/nmah/archives/b-7.htm#ELLINGTON
The Archives Center Finding Aids
http://www.si.edu/nmah/archives/d5301a.htm
Rude Interlude
http://www.ilinks.net/~holmesr/duke.htmc
 
BIOGRAPHICAL OVERVIEWS: The Man and His Family
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (1899 - 1974)
http://www.schirmer.com/composers/ellington_bio.html
It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing
http://georgew.gw.pps.pgh.pa.us/user/se1001/Duke.html
An Appreciation of Duke Ellington
http://www.ilinks.net/~holmesr/dukessay.htm
The World Citizen
http://www.cmgww.com/music/ellington/print1.htm
Photo Archive
http://www.cmgww.com/music/ellington/photo.html
Mercer Ellington, Bandleader, Son of Duke
http://www.eternalflame.com/ellingtn.htm
A Daughter-in-law's Tribute
http://www.cmgww.com/music/ellington/left.html
The Edward Kennedy Ellington Pages
http://www.dnsmith.com/ellington
THE MUSICIAN AND THE MUSIC

Duke Ellington: Master Composer
http://www.eds.evansville.net/courses/swm/jazz/mastercomposer.html
Ellington-Strayhorn Songbook
http://www2.meshnet.or.jp/~songbook/ellington-strayhorn/
Duke Ellington and His Kentucky Club Orchestra
http://www.technoir.net/jazz/kentucky.html
Duke Ellington and His Orchestra - (Photo)
http://www.technoir.net/jazz/dukeoinfo.html
History of Jazz
http://www.jazzcentralstation.com/jcs/station/newsstan/history/225thist.html
Duke Ellington - The Story
http://www.flash.net/~rdreagan.duke.shtml
The Essence of Duke Ellington
http://duke.fuse.net/essence/main.html
Duke Ellington: Blues in Orbit
http://www.big-shot.com/inkblot/rev-archive/ellington.htm
The Duke Ellington Panorama
http://geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Square/2660/ell/index.htm 
LINKS TO OTHER PAGES
Rude Interlude - a Duke Ellington Home Page
http://www.ilinks.net/~holmesr/duke.htm
Links to Other Duke Ellington Pages
http://www.duke.edu/~jef3/pics.html
Duke Ellington Pages
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/LibInfo/Libraries/CJA/ellington.html
People in Jazz
http://www.acns.nwu.edu/jazz/artists/ellington.duke/
 
DISCOGRAPHIES, FILMOGRAPHIES

G.Schirmer's Selected Discography
http://www.schirmer.com/composers/ellington_disco.html
The Best of the Sacred Concerts
http://www.schirmer.com/composers/ellington_sacred.html
The Edward Kennedy Ellington Pages
http://www.dnsmith.com/ellington/recordings.html
Red Hot Bands, 1895-1929
http://www.redhotjazz.com/bands.html
Duke Ellington and His Cotton Club Orchestra
 http://www.redhotjazz.com/dukecco.html
Duke Ellington and His Kentucky Club Orchestra
http://www.redhotjazz.com/kentucky.html
Duke Ellington/Joe Turner and His Memphis Men
http://www.redhotjazz.com/turnermm.html
Duke Ellington and His Orchestra
http://www.redhotjazz.com/dukeo.html
Duke Ellington - Blue Feeling
http://www.pastperfect.com/releases/duke.html
The Ellington-Strayhorn Songbook
http://www2.meshnet.or.jp/~songbook/ellington-strayhorn/index.html
 
FRIENDS, FANS AND SCHOOL ASSOCIATIONS
The Duke Ellington Society [TDES] (NY)
http://duke.fuse.net/duke.html
The Duke Ellington Society (UK)
http://home.clara.net/desuk/
The Western High School - Duke Ellington School of the Arts Alumni Association
http://www.his.com/~weaa/
 
BOOKS AND ARTICLES: Biographical and critical works

Anderson, Paul A. "Ellington, Rap Music, and Cultural Differenc." The Musical Quarterly 79 (Spring 1995): 172-206.
Clark, Robert S. "Music Chronicle." The Hudson Review 42 (Spring 1989): 101-107.
Collier, James Lincoln. Duke Ellington. New York: Oxford University, 1987.
Dance, Stanley. The World of Duke Ellington.  New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1970.
Ellington, Mercer and Stanley Dance. Duke Ellington in Person: an Intimate Memoir. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978.
Hasse, John Edward. Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
Hudson, Theodore R. "Duke Ellington's Literary Sources." American Music 9 (Spring 1991): 20-42.
Jewell, Derek.  Duke: A Portrait of Duke Ellington. New York: Norton, 1977, reissued 1986.
Marsalis, Wynton. "Ellington At 100: Reveling in Life's Majesty." New York Times  17 January 1999,
section 2, p.1.
Metzer, David. "Shadow Play: the Spiritual in Duke Ellington's 'Black and Tan Fantasy.'" Black Music Research Journal 17 (Fall 1997): 137-58.
Murray, Albert." The Vernacular Imperative: Duke Ellington's Place in the National Pantheon." Boundary 2 22 (Summer 1995):19-24.
Rattenbury, Ken. Duke Ellington, Jazz Composer.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990.
Teachout, Terry. "(Over)praising Duke Ellington."  Commentary 102 (Spring 1996): 74-77.
Tucker, Mark, ed. The Duke Ellington Reader.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
___________.  Ellington: The Early Years.  Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991.
Watrous, Peter and  Mark Tucker. "Ellington Emerges, Falters and Triumphs."  New York Times 17 January 1999, section 2, p.32.

Howard Universities. "A Centennial Tribute To Duke Ellington." Howard University Libraries. Howard University, 28 June 1999. Web. 20 Mar. 2011. <http://www.founders.howard.edu/ellington/default.htm>.

Duke Ellington, "Take the A Train"

     This is a segment from the film Reveille with Beverly from 1943; the song was composed in 1939, by me. Then this was put in a movie.

 

Duke Ellington, orch. "Take the "A" Train." Rec. 1943. Duke Ellington, "Take the A Train" Duke Ellington Orchestra. 1939. MIDI.

Duke Ellington - It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got that Swing) (1943)

One of my most famous songs...
It Don't Mean a Thing (If it ain't got that Swing)

Duke Ellington, orch. "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)." Rec. 1943. It Don't Mean a Thing (1943). Duke Ellington Orchestra. 1943. MIDI

My Grammy Award History

1.      Best Traditional Jazz Album - Instrumental -- Nominee
2000 Juno Awards
Time Warp Plays the Music of Duke Ellington 
2.      Ti Historical Album -- Winner
1999 Grammy Awards
 The Duke Ellington Centennial Edition - The Complete RCA Victor Recordings (1927-1973)me Warp

3. Boxed Recording Package -- Nominee
   1998 Grammy Awards
   The Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington Cote D'Azur Concerts on Verve
4. Best Historical Album -- Nominee
   1995 Grammy Awards
   Early Ellington: The Complete Brunswick and Vocalion Recordings of Duke Ellington, 1926-1931 - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
5. Best Jazz Instrumental Performance - Big Band -- Nominee
   1989 Grammy AwardsDuke Ellington Orchestra conducted by Mercer Ellington - Music Is My Mistress
6. Best Jazz Instrumental Performance - Big Band -- Winner
   1987 Grammy Awards Duke Ellington Orchestra conducting by Mercer Ellington - Digital Duke
7. Best Cast Show Album -- Nominee
   1981 Grammy AwardsDuke Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies - Duke Ellington and other composers and lyricists
8. Best Jazz Instrumental Performance - Big Band -- Winner
   1979 Grammy Awards Duke Ellington - At Fargo, 1940 Live
9. Best Historical Reissue -- Nominee
   1979 Grammy AwardsDuke Ellington (Giants of Jazz)
10. Best Jazz Performance by a Big Band -- Winner
    1976 Grammy Awards Duke Ellington - The Ellington Suites
11.  Outstanding Live or Tape Sound Mixing -- Nominee
    1973 Emmy AwardsDuke Ellington...We Love You Madly
12. Best Jazz Performance - Big Band -- Winner
    1972 Grammy Awards Duke Ellington - Togo Brava Suite
13. Best Instrumental Composition -- Nominee
    1971 Grammy AwardsDuke Ellington - New Orleans Suite
14. Best Jazz Performance - Big Band -- Winner
    1971 Grammy Awards Duke Ellington - New Orleans Suite
15. Best Jazz Performance - Large Group or Soloist with Large Group -- Nominee
    1970 Grammy AwardsDuke Ellington - Duke Ellington, 70th Birthday Concert
16. Outstanding Variety or Musical Program -- Nominee
    1969 Emmy AwardsDuke Ellington Concert of Sacred Music
17. Best Instrumental Jazz Performance - Large Group or Soloist with Large Group -- Winner
    1968 Grammy Awards Duke Ellington - And His Mother Called Him Bill
18. Best Instrumental Jazz Performance - Large Group or Soloist with Large Group -- Winner
    1967 Grammy Awards Duke Ellington - Far East Suite
19. Trustees Award -- Winner
    1967 Grammy Awards Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn
20. Best Original Jazz Composition -- Winner
    1966 Grammy Awards Duke Ellington - In the Beginning God
21. Lifetime Achievement Award -- Winner
    1966 Grammy Awards Duke Ellington
22. Best Instrumental Jazz Performance - Group or Soloist with Group -- Nominee
    1966 Grammy AwardsDuke Ellington Orchestra - Concert of Sacred Music
23. Best Jazz Performance - Large Group or Soloist with Large Group -- Winner
    1965 Grammy Awards Duke Ellington Orchestra - Ellington '66
24. Best Original Jazz Composition -- Nominee
    1965 Grammy AwardsDuke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn - Virgin Islands Suite
25. Best Original Jazz Composition -- Nominee
    1964 Grammy AwardsDuke Ellington - Night Creature
26. Best Jazz Performance by a Large Group - Instrumental -- Nominee
    1962 Grammy AwardsDuke Ellington, Count Basie - First Time!
27. Best Jazz Performance - Solo or Small Group -- Nominee
    1960 Grammy AwardsDuke Ellington, Johnny Hodges - Back to Back
28. Best Jazz Performance - Group -- Nominee
    1959 Grammy AwardsDuke Ellington - Ellington Jazz Party
29. Best Performance by a Dance Band -- Winner
    1959 Grammy Awards Duke Ellington - Anatomy of a Murder

      My Grammy Accomplishments

     Los Angeles Times. Entertainment Awards Database. Web. 9 Mar. 2011. <http://theenvelope.latimes.com/factsheets/awardsdb/env-awards-db-search,0,7169155.htmlstory?searchtype=all&query=Duke+Ellington&x=8&y=6>.

Duke Ellington interview 1973

When I was interviewed by the Finnish National Broadcasting Company!!

Duke Ellington. "Duke Ellington Interview 1973." Interview by Finnish National Broadcasting Company. Www.youtube.com. 19 Apr. 2008. Web. 9 Mar. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9F_hRpwL4M&feature=related>.

My Music is bein' put in The Smithsonian!

SMITHSONIAN ACQUIRES DUKE ELLINGTON TROVE OF SCORES AND PAPERS
By IRVIN MOLOTSKY, Special to the New York Times
Published: April 27, 1988

WASHINGTON, April 26 —
          The Smithsonian Institution announced today the acquisition of a huge trove of papers, memorabilia and orchestral manuscripts of the music of Duke Ellington.
          It is a body of work that will permit the complete performance of many of Ellington's big-band pieces for the first time since his death in 1974. The material also includes tapes of the Ellington band that were made in the late 1960's at Ellington's expense and that remain unissued.
         ''We still have music that hasn't been exposed that he's written,'' said Mercer Ellington, the band leader's son.
Until the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History stepped in and acquired the collection with Federal funds, it had been deteriorating in a Manhattan warehouse. Original Score of 'Solitude'
         John Fleckner, the head of the museum's archives center, pointed to a fading photograph of an elegant Ellington at a piano, taken in the late 1920's or early 1930's, and said it was the kind of piece the museum hoped to restore.

Next to it was the original penciled score of ''Solitude,'' with all the parts written out in a delicate hand that the manager of the collection, Fitzroy Thomas, said had been described as feathery by Ellington's sister, Ruth.

         The manuscript was included in a large binder, evidently in the ''S'' section because ''Solitude'' was followed by ''Someone,'' ''Stomp - Look & Listen,'' ''Stompy Jones'' and ''Stroll.'' The pieces in the binder are in good condition, Mr. Thomas said, because they were held in the office of Ellington's lawyer, Lisk Wyckoff, instead of the warehouse, where cold and damp have taken a toll.
       The Smithsonian's Ellington collection was paid for with $800,000 in appropriations by Congress. Of that, $300,000 is for the Ellington estate to pay for the material, which consists of 200,000 pages, and the rest is for the establishment of an Ellington archives at the American History Museum and the salaries of archivists and conservationists. For Study and Display
       Some of the material will be studied by jazz scholars and musicians, while some of it will be put on display, with Roger G. Kennedy, director of the museum, stressing that aspect.

 An article about what will go in museums like the Smithsonian, One day!

WORK CITED: Irvin Molotsky, Special to the New York Times. "Smithsonian Acquires Duke Ellington Trove Of Scores and Papers." The New York Times [New York, New York] 27 Apr. 1988, Arts sec. Print.

A New York Times Article About Me!

Duke Ellington's Centennial

             One hundred years ago today, Duke Ellington was born in Washington D.C., and if every city or town where he and his band performed during his lifetime were to commemorate him by hearing a song f his again, the earth would resonate with music. It should not be possible, today of all days, to walk down Broadway or look out over the rooftops of Harlem without hearing in the streets the sound of an Ellington composition. But even if you have to listen in your own mind, you will hear, if you listen closely, the echo of a pulse he memorialized again and again in music.        

               Ellington was partial to giving brief verbal accounts of the moods his songs captured. Reading those accounts is like looking deep into the background of an old photo of New York and noticing the lost and almost unaccountable details that gave the city its character during Ellington's heyday, which began in 1927 when his band made the Cotton Club its home. ''The memory of things gone,'' Ellington once said, ''is important to a jazz musician,'' and the stories he sometimes told about his songs are the record of those things gone. But what is gone returns, its pulse kicking, when Ellington's music plays, and never mind what past it is, for the music itself still carries us forward.
      
               Ellington's body of work is enormous, and enormously influential. For many years he was so prolific that you cannot help wondering whether he got down even a fraction of what he heard in his head. If you judge his ambition by the contours of his recorded music, then he was a vastly ambitious man, always probing outward, across genres, from the last musical outpost he inhabited, without ever abandoning the blues, which he helped transform. His personal stature was stately, almost diplomatic in later years, and there was a curious irony in the way he would introduce, with a precise, unlocalized diction, a song that he and his band would use to scorch the room. This is a good day to remember the uprising in the heart that a big band could cause, and especially the big band led by Duke Ellington.

WORK CITED: "Duke Ellington's Centennial." New York Times [New York, New York] 29 Apr. 1999. Print.

Duke Ellington - C Jam Blues (1942)

The 'C' Jam Blues!

WORK CITED: Duke Ellington Orchestra. "The 'C' Jam Blues." Rec. 1942. Duke Ellington - C Jam Blues (1942). R.C.M Productions Inc., 1942. MIDI.

<http://www.youtube.com>

Duke Ellington - Satin Doll

Me!, Preforming with my Orchestra in the 50's.
Playing one of my favorites and hits "Satin Doll"

WORK CITED: Duke Ellington Orchestra. "Satin Doll." Rec. c. 1940-1950. C. 1940-1950. MIDI.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDDCzb3dv_Y&feature=bf_prev&list=MLGxdCwVVULXcYKybsF21cESV7G-a-SRm0&index=3>