Duke Ellington | Artist

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and leader of a jazz orchestra born 1899 in Washington DC. Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem. Ellington composed and led his orchestra from 1923 until his death over a career spanning more than fifty years. With his compositional skill and inventive use of the orchestra he raised big band jazz to an art form. Ellington wrote more than one thousand compositions; his extensive body of work is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, with many of his pieces having become standards. He had a thirty-year collaboration with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, with whom he composed many extended compositions, or suites, as well as additional short pieces. Following an appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival, in July 1956, Ellington and his orchestra enjoyed a major revival and embarked on world tours. Ellington recorded for most American record companies of his era, performed in several films, scored several, and composed a handful of stage musicals. His many releases are uniformly excellent. Outstanding albums include Masterpieces by Ellington (1951), Ellington Uptown (1953), Ellington at Newport (1956), Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Song Book (1957), Such Sweet Thunder (1957), Back to Back (1959), Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Duke Ellington and John Coltrane (1963), Duke Ellington Meets Coleman Hawkins (1963), Money Jungle (1963), Duke Ellington's Far East Suite (1967), New Orleans Suite (1971), Latin American Suite (1972) and The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse (1976). Ellington was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize Special Award for music in 1999, twenty-five years after his death. Ellington's mother Daisy Kennedy, was born in Washington, D.C., on January 4, 1879, the daughter of two former American slaves. Ellington lived out his final years in Manhattan, in a townhouse at 333 Riverside Drive near West 106th Street. His sister Ruth, who managed his publishing company, also lived there, and his son Mercer lived next door. After his death, West 106th Street was officially renamed Duke Ellington Boulevard.

Artist Website: dukeellington.com

Featured Albums: Duke Ellington

Related Artists: Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, Max Roach, Charles Mingus

Collections: Music Visionaries