Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy Ellington was born on April 29, 1899, in Washington, D.C., to James Edward Ellington and Daisy Kennedy Ellington, both of whom played piano. The family lived in D.C.'s West End neighborhood, where James Ellington made blueprints for the United States Navy. As a child, Ellington attended Armstrong Technical High School and took his first piano lessons at age seven from Marietta Clinkscales, though baseball initially held more appeal than music. His childhood friends gave him the nickname "Duke" in recognition of his dapper dress and composed manner, a name Ellington credited specifically to his friend Edgar McEntee.

Ellington's serious engagement with music began in his early teens, when he started frequenting Frank Holiday's Poolroom at age fourteen and became captivated by the pianists he heard there. In the summer of 1914, while working as a soda jerk at the Poodle Dog Café, he composed his first piece, "Soda Fountain Rag," entirely by ear. He went on to study harmony privately with Henry Lee Grant, a Dunbar High School music teacher, and learned to read sheet music under the guidance of Washington pianist and bandleader Oliver "Doc" Perry. In 1916, Ellington turned down an art scholarship to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and left Armstrong Manual Training School three months before graduating to pursue music. He had also held a messenger job with the U.S. Navy and State departments, where he built a broad network of contacts.

By 1917, Ellington was working as a freelance sign painter while assembling groups to play for dances, leveraging his day job to book musical engagements. He formed his first group, the Duke's Serenaders, in late 1917, and served as the band's booking agent as well as its pianist. The ensemble included Otto Hardwick on alto saxophone, Arthur Whetsel on trumpet, Elmer Snowden on banjo, and Sonny Greer on drums. When Greer was invited to join the Wilbur Sweatman Orchestra in New York City, Ellington followed, relocating to Harlem and becoming part of the Harlem Renaissance.

Based in New York from the mid-1920s, Ellington led his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1924 for the remainder of his life. The orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem brought him national recognition. A skilled writer of short-form compositions suited to the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington wrote or collaborated on more than one thousand compositions, and many of his pieces became jazz standards. He also recorded works by his bandsmen, among them Juan Tizol's "Caravan," which introduced a Spanish influence into big band jazz.

At the close of the 1930s, Ellington began a collaboration with composer, arranger, and pianist Billy Strayhorn that would last nearly thirty-five years. Ellington described Strayhorn as his writing and arranging companion. Together they produced multiple extended suites as well as numerous shorter works. During the early years of Strayhorn's involvement, the orchestra also featured bassist Jimmy Blanton and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster. After a quieter period, an appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1956 sparked a major revival of public interest and led to regular world tours. Ellington recorded for most major American record companies of his era, scored several films, and performed in them as well.

Ellington's Broadway work spanned several decades. His stage credits as composer and book writer include Blue Holiday, Beggar's Holiday, Pousse-Café, and Sophisticated Ladies. He received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Music in a Play in 1994. Ellington died on May 24, 1974. In 1999, he was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize Special Award for music.