Duke Ellington

American pianist, bandleader and songwriter Duke Ellington (1899–1974) was an originator of Big-Band Jazz, and created one of the most distinctive ensemble sounds in western music. He composed thousands of scores over his 50-year career and continued to play until shortly before he died in 1974.


American postcard by Fotofolio, NY, NY, no. M116. Photo: Maurice Seymour, Chicago / Frank Driggs Collection. Caption: Duke Ellington, 1934.


Dutch promotion card by Philips, no. GF 025 66 15.

Part of the Harlem Renaissance

Duke Ellington was born in 1899, in Washington, D.C., where he was raised by two talented, musical parents in a middle-class neighbourhood. At the age of 7, he began studying piano and earned the nickname 'Duke' for his gentlemanly ways. Inspired by his job as a soda jerk at the Poodle Dog Cafe, he wrote his first composition, 'Soda Fountain Rag', at the age of 15. He created it by ear because he had not yet learned to read and write music.

Despite being awarded an art scholarship to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, Ellington followed his passion for Ragtime and began to play professionally at age 17. In late 1917, he formed his first group, 'The Duke's Serenaders'.

He moved to Harlem, ultimately becoming part of the Harlem Renaissance. New dance crazes like the Charleston emerged in Harlem, as well as African-American musical theatre. From 1924 on, Ellington performed in Broadway nightclubs as the bandleader of a sextet, a group which in time grew to a 10-piece ensemble.

From 1927 on, he gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the legendary Cotton Club in Harlem. With a weekly radio broadcast, the Cotton Club's exclusively white and wealthy clientele poured in nightly to see them. At the Cotton Club, Ellington's group performed all the music for the revues, which mixed comedy, dance numbers, vaudeville, burlesque, music, and illegal alcohol.

In 1929, the Cotton Club Orchestra appeared on stage for several months in 'Florenz Ziegfeld's Show Girl', along with vaudeville stars Jimmy Durante, Eddie Foy, Jr., Ruby Keeler, and with music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Gus Kahn.


Dutch postcard by Takken, no. 2096.


Dutch postcard by Takken, no. 3009.

Complex yet accessible jazz that made the heart swing

Duke Ellington made hundreds of recordings with his bands, appeared in films and on the radio, and toured Europe on two occasions in the 1930s. Ellington's film work began with Black and Tan (Dudley Murphy, 1929), a nineteen-minute all-African-American RKO short in which he played the hero Duke. He also appeared in the Amos 'n' Andy film Check and Double Check (Melville W. Brown, 1930). Ivie Anderson was hired as his orchestra's featured vocalist in 1931. She is the vocalist on 'It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)' (1932) among other recordings.

Ellington and his Orchestra also appeared in the films Murder at the Vanities (Mitchell Leisen, 1934) and Belle of the Nineties (Leo McCarey, 1934), featuring Mae West. The short film Symphony in Black (Fred Waller, 1935) featured his extended piece 'A Rhapsody of Negro Life'. It introduced Billie Holiday and won an Academy Award as the best musical short subject. While the band's United States audience remained mainly African-American in this period, the Ellington orchestra had a huge following overseas, exemplified by the success of their trip to England in 1933 and their 1934 visit to the European mainland.

Ellington's fame rose to the rafters in the 1940s when he composed several masterworks, including 'Concerto for Cootie', 'Cotton Tail' and 'Ko-Ko'. His blend of melodies, rhythms and subtle sonic movements gave audiences a new experience — complex yet accessible jazz that made the heart swing. He preferred to call it 'American Music'. During the early 1950s, Ellington's career was at a low point, with his style being generally seen as outmoded. Ellington's appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956 returned him to wider prominence and introduced him to a new generation of fans.

Ellington began to work directly on scoring for film soundtracks, in particular Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959), with James Stewart, in which Ellington appeared fronting a roadhouse combo, and Paris Blues (Martin Ritt, 1961), which featured Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier as jazz musicians. Ellington earned 12 Grammy awards from 1959 to 2000, nine while he was alive.

At the age of 19, Duke Ellington married Edna Thompson, who had been his girlfriend since high school, and soon after their marriage, she gave birth to their only child, Mercer Kennedy Ellington. In 1928, Ellington became the companion of Mildred Dixon, who travelled with him, managed Tempo Music, inspired songs at the peak of his career and raised his son Mercer. In 1938, he left his family and moved in with Cotton Club employee Beatrice 'Evie' Ellis. The relationship with Ellis, though stormy, continued after Ellington met Fernanda de Castro Monte in the early 1960s. Ellington supported both women for the rest of his life. In 1974, at the age of 75, Duke Ellington died of lung cancer and pneumonia. His last words were, "Music is how I live, why I live and how I will be remembered." Following Duke's death, his son Mercer took over leadership of the orchestra, continuing until his own death in 1996.


Vintage postcard. Photo: Wayne Miller / Magnum Photos. Caption: Duke Ellington rehearsing on stage at the Savoy, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 1948.


French postcard by Éditions du Désastre, no. FD05, 1992. Photo: F. Driggs Collection / Magnum/ Éditions du Désastre, Paris. Caption: Duke Ellington, Ben Webster & Jimmy Hamilton, 1948.


French postcard by Éditions du Désastre, Paris, no. WC 13, 1989. Photo: William Claxton. Caption: Duke Ellington, Monterey Jazz Festival 1958.

Source: Bio., IMDb and Wikipedia.