Duke Ellington
The Composer
BY MICHAEL DRISCOLL
DECEMBER 2013
Duke Ellington is considered to be one of the most prolific and influential jazz artists of
the twentieth century. He was born on April 29, 1899 in Washington, D.C. with his given name
of Edward Kennedy Ellington. He later earned his nickname of “Duke” from a high school
friend that said he needed a nickname that went along with his aristocratic demeanor.
Ellington composed groundbreaking hits such as “Satin Doll,” “Mood Indigo,” “I Got It
Bad And That Ain’t Good,” Prelude to a Kiss” and “In a Sentimental Mood,” and helped write
the song “Take the ‘A’ Train” with famed pianist-composer Billy Strayhorn. “Take the ‘A’ Train’
would later become Dukes calling card. Peter Gammond says “Jazz is above all a total freedom
to express oneself.” (as cited in Duke Ellington, 1993, p. 3)
Ellington’s overall sense of how the human condition worked allowed him to capture the
mood of a situation and turn it into music. His music always told a story, he was able to bring a
visual image to his music with the harmony, rhythm and melodies he gathered from the blues and
other folk music. “Practically everything we wrote,” Ellington once said, “was supposed to be a
picture of something, a representative character.” Ellington’s personal touch on the music he
created changed the way the world regarded jazz. “In his hands, jazz became serious art, as
lyrical and as complex as any symphony.” (Ellington, 1992, para. 2)
Ellington’s musical mentor was a classical composer by the name of Will Marion Cook.
He encouraged Duke to explore the music from his heritage as an African-American. One of
Dukes many innovations in jazz was the introduction of the “jungle-style” musical variations.
The Harlem Renaissance had a dramatic effect on Dukes music as well. The jubilant time help
inspire such works as “Daybreak Express” and “Harlem Airshaft,” which reproduced the sound
and feel of an express train and gave its listeners the feeling of being a passenger on the train.
Through the artists in his orchestras, Ellington saturated his music with an array of
regional musicians. The likes of Trumpeter Bubber Miley and clarinetist Barney Bigard are two
of such performers that helped Duke’s music bring out a New Orleans flavor. Through the use of
polyphonic writing and rhythmic accents, Duke was able to convey the New Orleans style in his
music. Duke employed artists like “Tricky Sam” Nanton a trombonist from Jamaica and Juan
Tizol a saxophonist from Puerto Rico, and Johnny Hodges and Harry Carney who were from
Boston. Others like trumpeter Cootie Williams came from Mobile. Each of these artists
contributed their unique styles to Dukes orchestra.
In the early 1920’s, Ellington and his band, then known as “Duke Ellington and the
Washingtonians”, took up engagements at small Harlem clubs that housed mostly black
audiences. Eventually they landed steady jobs playing exclusively for white audiences. All of
