Biography of Duke Ellington

Sound painting

29 April 1899
May 24, 1974
Duke Ellington (whose real name is Edward Kennedy) was born on 29 April 1899 in Washington. He began playing professionally as a teenager, in the 1910s, in his hometown as a pianist. After some years spent performing in dance halls along with Otto Hardwick and Sonny Greer, thanks to the latter, she moved to New York in 1922, playing with Wilbur Sweatman; the following year, he was hired by the "Snowden's Novelty Orchestra", which includes, in addition to Hardwick and Greer, even Elmer Snowden, Roland Smith, Bubber Miley, Arthur Whetsol and John Anderson.
Become the leader of the band in 1924, obtained a contract with the "Cotton Club", the most famous of Harlem. Shortly after the orchestra, who took the name "Washingtonians", see join Barney Bigard on clarinet, Wellman Braud on bass, Louis Metcalf on trumpet and Harry Carney and Johnny Hodges on saxophone. The first Duke's masterpieces date back just in those years, between shows pseudo-African ("The mooche", "Black and tan fantasy") and songs intimate and atmospheric ("Mood Indigo"). The success was not long in coming, in part because the jungle is particularly palatable to whites. After welcoming the group even Juan Tizol, Rex Stewart, Cootie Williams and Lawrence Brown, Ellington also calls Jimmy Blanton, which revolutionized the technique of his instrument, the bass, elevated to the rank of soloist, like a piano or a horn.
In the late 1930s, Duke accepts the collaboration of Billy Strayhorn, arranger and pianist: his right hand man, even his musical alter ego, also from the point of view of composition. Among the works that see the light between 1940 and 1943 included "Concerto for Cootie", "Cotton Tail", "Jack the Bear" and "Harlem Air Shaft": these are masterpieces that can hardly be labeled, because they go beyond interpretation schemes well defined. The same Ellington, talking of their songs, refers to musical paintings, and his ability to paint through sounds (he, not surprisingly, before embarking on a musical career had expressed interest in the painting, desiring to become a cartoonist advertising). By 1943, the musician gives concerts at Carnegie Hall, "sacred Temple of some kind of classical music: in those years, moreover, the Group (which had remained United for many years) loses some pieces as Greer (who must deal with alcohol problems), Bigard and Webster.
After a period of fog in the early 1950s, output will altosassofonista scene, Johnny Hodges and trombonist Lawrence Brown, the highly successful returns with a performance by the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival "," with the execution of, inter alia, "Diminuendo in Blue". This song, along with "Jeep's Blues" and "Crescendo in Blue", is the only live recording of the album, released in the summer of that year, "Ellington at Newport", which contains several other tracks that are declared "live" despite having been recorded in studio and mixed with plaudits (only in 1998 the full concert will be published, in the double disc "Ellington at Newport-Complete") Thanks to the accidental discovery of the tapes from that night by the radio station "The voice of America". Since the 1960s, Duke is always traveling the world, engaged in between tours, concerts and new recordings: include, among others, the suite of 1958 "Such sweet thunder", inspired by William Shakespeare; the 1966 "Far East suite"; and that of 1970 "New Orleans suite".
Earlier, on 31 May 1967 the musician in Washington had broken off the tour in which he was engaged upon the death of Billy Strayhorn, his collaborator who was also became his close friend due to esophageal cancer: for twenty days, Duke had never emerged from his bedroom. Passed the period of depression (for three months had refused to give concerts), Ellington returned to work with the recording of "And his mother called him" famous album that includes some of the most celebrated scores of his friend. After the "Second Sacred Concert," recorded with the Swedish interpreter Alice Babs, Ellington has to contend with another fatal event: during a dental chair, Johnny Hodges dies of a heart attack the 11 May 1970. After welcoming in his orchestra, among others, Buster Cooper on trombone, Rufus Jones on drums, Joe Benjamin on bass and Fred Stone the flugelhorn, Duke Ellington in 1971 gets an Honorary Doctorate Degree from Berklee College of Music in 1973 from Columbia University and an Honorary Degree in Music; He died in New York on May 24, 1974 due to lung cancer, alongside Son Mercer, and just days away from death (without his knowledge) by Paul Gonsalves, his trusty collaborator, died of a heroin overdose.
Conductor, composer and pianist, inter alia, winner of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a Grammy Trustees Award, Ellington was named the "Presidential Medal of freedom" in 1969 and "Knight of the Legion of Honor" four years later. Considered one of the most important American composers of his century and one of the most significant in the history of jazz, he touched during his 60 year career, ultra-even different genres like classical music, gospel and blues.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.