Jazz 'til Midnight
Saturdays at 8 p.m.
on 90.5 WKAR
Celebrate "The Duke's" Birthday
He was one of a kind. No one else played like him, arranged music like he did, or wrote songs like he did. He was Edward Kennedy Ellington, a.k.a. “Duke.”
WKAR-FM will celebrate the man and his music with a special Jazz ‘til Midnight birthday bash on Saturday, April 26, at 8 p.m. Host Doug Collar will feature a variety of compositions from Ellington’s vast repertoire.
A simple description would list Ellington’s credentials as American composer, pianist, and band leader. However, during his 50-year career he was one of the most influential jazz figures and one of the most prolific composers – both in number of compositions and variety of forms – of the 20th century.
Born on April 29, 1899 in Washington, D.C., Ellington began teaching himself to play the piano at an early age (after his first piano teacher literally shooed him out the door for a lack of proper concentration), his style influenced by stride piano players such as James P. Johnson and Willie “The Lion” Smith.
He wrote his first song, Soda Fountain Rag (also known as Poodle Dog Rag), while working behind the counter at the Poodle Dog Café in 1914 – by ear because he had not yet learned to read or write music. He began performing professionally at age 17 around Washington, and later formed a group called The Washingtonians. Three years later, he married Edna Thompson, a pianist, who taught her 20-year-old husband how to read and write music.
Next, Ellington and the band moved to New York City in 1923, hired famed trumpeter James “Bubber” Miley, and in 1924 released their first record -- Choo Choo (Gotta Hurry Home) and Rainy Nights (Rainy Days).
After a four-year stint at the Kentucky Club on Broadway, the band’s big break came on December 4, 1927, when they opened at Harlem’s famed Cotton Club. Now known as the Ellington Orchestra and the club’s house band, their unique style of jazz became familiar across the country through live radio broadcasts.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Ellington was also at the forefront of breaking down racial barriers by performing in theaters and hotels previously barred to blacks. He would do this for the rest of his career, and by the time he left the Cotton Club in 1931, he and Louis Armstrong were the two best-known jazz figures in America. This is not to say they didn’t encounter racial prejudices; they did. Even as late as the 1950s, the Ellington Orchestra could not eat in Las Vegas casino restaurants, so they ordered room service. When asked about how he dealt with discrimination Ellington responded, “I took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.”
It’s interesting to note that in the United States the Ellington Orchestra was billed as either a dance band or as a stage-show attraction, while in Europe they were considered serious artists and given concert presentations and elaborate printed programs during their 1933 and 1939 European tours.
Ellington was a person who always felt that his real instrument was the gifted musicians of his band – drummer Sonny Greer, second trombonist Juan Tizol, trombonist Lawrence Brown, violinist/trumpeter Ray Nance, and Mary Lou Williams (his music arranger and one of the great women in jazz), and, of course, the great Billy Strayhorn. Strayhorn joined the group in 1939, composing and co-writing some of Ellington’s most famous pieces such as Take the ‘A’ Train.
One wouldn’t call Ellington “moody,” but according to his son Mercer, his father always wrote what he felt, depending upon the mood he was in at the time. His compositions were also based on a memory or image. He may have declined an art scholarship to the Pratt Institute in 1916 but he was still painting with his songs.
The Ellington songbook includes such time-tested treasures as Mood Indigo, Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, In a Sentimental Mood, Sophisticated Lady, and the symphonic suites Black, Brown and Beige and Harlem. And his It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got that Swing) defined the 1930s Swing era.
By the end of World War II all of the big bands were losing their edge and having to compete with a new form of music called bebop, and with rhythm and blues. The orchestra lost long-time members and Ellington began raiding other bands for players. Even his long-time champion, Down Beat magazine, urged him to disband in 1949.
He didn’t and in 1956 he had a triumphant comeback at the Newport Jazz Festival and made the cover of Time magazine. The Duke was back.
During the 1960s he was given 17 honorary doctorates, multiple Grammy Awards, and the highest civilian honor from the governments of France and the United States. President Nixon presented Ellington with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a special White House Ceremony in 1969.
Ellington celebrated his diamond jubilee a few months before he passed away on May 24, 1974. Not only had he heard himself called America’s greatest composer -- his repertoire included musical reviews, film scores, Broadway productions and even a ballet (The River) that was choreographed by dancer Alvin Ailey -- but he had also been honored throughout the world playing more than 20,000 performances that reached tens of millions through his 7,000 compositions.
published: April 22, 2008
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