Mildred Dixon

Mildred Dixon (November 21, 1904 – September 18, 2001) was a dancer, Broadway performer, and business manager born in Boston, Massachusetts, to parents who had emigrated from Africville, Nova Scotia. Her family were descendants of Black Loyalists, freed American slaves relocated to Nova Scotia by British forces following the American Revolutionary War. Dixon grew up in South Boston, a neighborhood with an established Black community that included descendants of freedmen and people who had migrated north after the Civil War. She received her education in local Boston schools and trained in tap dance and other forms of stage dancing before relocating to New York City.

Dixon's Broadway career began in 1923, when she appeared in the musical Runnin' Wild. She subsequently became a prominent figure in the New York dance world during the Harlem Renaissance, joining the Cotton Club in Harlem in the mid-1920s. There she partnered with Henri Wessell to form the dance duo known as "Mildred and Henri," an act that earned recognition as one of the most exciting in the country. It was at the Cotton Club on December 4, 1927, the opening night of Duke Ellington and his orchestra's residency at the venue, that Dixon first met Ellington. The two began a relationship in 1928, and by 1930 they had moved in together at 381 Edgecombe Avenue, Apartment 142, in the Sugar Hill neighborhood of Manhattan. Their household included Ellington's son Mercer and his parents.

Throughout her decade-long companionship with Ellington, from 1928 to 1938, Dixon served as manager of his company Tempo Music. During this same period, Ellington composed several of his most celebrated works, among them "Mood Indigo" (1930), "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" (1932), "Sophisticated Lady" (1933), "Solitude" (1934), and "In a Sentimental Mood" (1935). The two also collaborated on productions including "It's the Blackberries," "Springbirds," and "Pepper-pot Revue." Mercer Ellington, who was ten years old when Dixon moved into the household, later wrote in his biography of his father that he regarded Dixon as a mother figure, describing her as possessing "innate class comparable to Ellington's own." Dixon and Ellington also maintained ties to her extended family in Africville, which they visited together throughout their relationship.

Ellington's song "Sophisticated Lady" (1933) is named for Dixon. Her cousin from Africville, Clara Carvery Adams, is the namesake of Ellington's song "Clara." The visits Dixon and Ellington made to Africville are commemorated in the song "Duke's in Town," included in Joe Sealy's Africville Stories in Music. After her relationship with Ellington ended, Dixon continued working in music publishing. She died on September 18, 2001.