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Oxford Music Online

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Ellington, Duke [Edward Kennedy]

(b Washington, DC, 29 April 1899; dNew York, 24 May 1974). American jazz composer, bandleader

and pianist. He was for decades a leading figure in big-band jazz and remains the most significantcomposer of the genre.

1. Life.

Ellingtons father was a butler and intended him to become an artist. He began to study the piano

when he was seven and was much influenced by the ragtime pianists; at the age of 17 he made his

professional debut. His first visit to New York, in early 1923, ended in financial failure, but on Fats

Wallers advice he moved there later that year with Elmer Snowdens Washington band, the

Washingtonians: Sonny Greer (drums), Otto Hardwick (saxophones), Snowden (banjo) and Artie

Whetsol (trumpet). Between 1923 and 1927 this small group, which played at the Hollywood andKentucky clubs on Broadway, was gradually enlarged to a ten-piece orchestra by the addition of

Bubber Miley (trumpet), Tricky Sam Nanton (trombone), Harry Carney (baritone saxophone), Rudy

Jackson (clarinet and tenor saxophone) and Wellman Braud (double bass); Fred Guy replaced

Snowden on banjo. The bands early recordings (East St Louis Toodle-oo, 1926, Vic., and Black and

Tan Fantasy, 1927, Bruns.) reveal growing originality.

During the following period (192730), at the Cotton Club in Harlem, Ellington began to share with

Louis Armstrong the leading position in the jazz world. The orchestra grew to 12 musicians,

including Barney Bigard (clarinet), Johnny Hodges (saxophone) and Cootie Williams (trumpet). The

group went to Hollywood to appear in the film Check and Double Check(1930) and in New York

made about 200 recordings, many in the jungle style that was one of Ellingtons and Mileys most

individual creations. The success ofMood Indigo (1930, Vic.) brought Ellington worldwide fame, and

in 1931 he began experiments in extended composition with Creole Rhapsody(Bruns.), later to be

followed by Reminiscing in Tempo (1935, Bruns.) and Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue (1937,

Bruns.). The decade from 1932 to 1942 was Ellingtons most creative. His band, consisting now of

six brass instruments, four reeds and a four-man rhythm section, performed in many American cities

and made highly successful concert tours of Europe in 1933 and 1939. In 193940 there were more

important additions to the band: Jimmy Blanton (double bass), Ben Webster (tenor saxophone) and

most notably Billy Strayhorn, as arranger, composer and second pianist. At this time Ellington

created several outstanding short works, in particularConcerto for Cootie, Ko-Ko and Cotton Tail(all

1940, Vic.).

In the mid-1940s the orchestra was enlarged again: by 1946 it included 18 players. But the previous

stability of personnel declined and Ellingtons writing, based on his members individual styles,

began to suffer from the constant changes. Some excellent soloists, however, were added: RayNance (trumpet and violin), Shorty Baker (trumpet) and Jimmy Hamilton (clarinet). In January 1943

Ellington inaugurated a series of annual concerts at Carnegie Hall with his monumental work Black,

Brown and Beige, a tone parallel originally conceived in five sections and intended to portray the

history of the black people in the USA through their music. Other ambitious works followed. After

Ellington abandoned these concerts in 1952, the development of the long-playing record allowed

him to create other multi-movement suites.

From 1950 Ellington continued to expand the scope of his compositions and his activities as a

bandleader [not available online]. His foreign tours became increasingly frequent and successful

Grove Music OnlineEllington, Duke

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composed his first full-length film score, for Otto PremingersAnatomy of a Murder(1959), and his

first incidental music, for Alain Ren Le Sages Turcaret(1960). He also made recordings with

younger jazz musicians such as John Coltrane, Charles Mingus and Max Roach (Money Jungle,

1962, UA). In his last decade Ellington wrote mostly liturgical music: In the Beginning God(for a

standard jazz orchestra, narrator, chorus, two soloists and dancer) was performed in Grace

Cathedral, San Francisco (1965), and this was followed by other sacred services. Among his

numerous awards and honours were doctorates from Howard University (1963) and Yale University

(1967) and the Presidential Medal of Honor (1969); in 1970 he was made a member of the National

Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 1971 he became the first jazz musician to be named a memberof the Swedish Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm. A documentary film of Ellington and his

orchestra, On the Road with Duke Ellington, was made in 1974. Ellington directed his band until his

death, when it was taken over by his son Mercer Ellington.

2. Style and musical language.

Ellington taught himself harmony at the piano and acquired the rudiments of orchestration by

experimenting with his band; his orchestra was a workshop in which he consulted his players and

tried out alternative solutions. During the formative Cotton Club period Ellington was obliged to work

in a variety of musical categories: numbers for dancing, jungle-style and production numbers,popular songs, blue or mood pieces, as well as pure instrumental jazz compositions. During this

period, too, Ellington developed an extraordinary symbiotic relationship with his orchestra it was

his instrument even more than the piano enabling him to experiment with the timbral colourings,

tonal effects and unusual voicings that became the hallmark of his style; the Ellington effect

(Strayhorns term) was virtually inimitable because it depended in large part on the particular timbre

and style of each player. Remarkably, though no two players in Ellingtons orchestra sounded alike,

they could, when called upon, produce the most ravishing blends and ensembles of sonority known

to jazz.

An outstanding early example of the Ellington effect may be heard on Mood Indigo (1930), in which

the traditional roles of the three front-line instruments in New Orleans collective improvisation

clarinet (high-register obbligato), trumpet (melody or theme) and trombone (bass or tenor counter-

themes) are inverted so that the muted trumpet plays on top; the plunger-muted trombone

functions as a high-register second voice, and the clarinet sounds more than an octave below in its

chalumeau register.

In the early and mid-1920s orchestral jazz arrangements were rudimentary, serving only the

simplest functions of dance music. But Ellington (along with Don Redman, Fletcher Henderson and

John Nesbitt) developed an elaborate, diversified concept of arranging, which incorporated the

essence of the current hot style of solo improvisation. In this he was greatly aided and influenced

by the extraordinary expressive and technical capabilities of his two principal brass players, Bubber

Miley and Tricky Sam Nanton, who were both experts of the so-called growl and plunger style.

These often pungent sonorities, when blended or juxtaposed with the smoother sounds of the

saxophone, provided Ellington with an orchestral palette more colourful and varied than that of any

other orchestra of the time (with the possible exception of Paul Whitemans). Faced with the formalproblem posed by jazz arrangement how best to integrate solo improvisation Ellington learnt to

exploit expertly the contrast produced by the soloists entry, so as to project him into the musics

movement and entrust him with its development. This partly explains why even Ellingtons finest

soloists seemed lustreless after leaving his orchestra. He also had a singular gift for devising

orchestral accompaniments for improvisation; no arrangers, except perhaps Sy Oliver and Gil

Evans, have imagined instrumental combinations as beautiful as those ofMystery Song(1931, Vic.),

Saddest Tale (1934, Bruns.), Delta Serenade (1934, Vic.),Azure (1937, Master), Subtle Lament

(1939, Bruns.), Dusk(1940, Vic.), Ko-Ko (1940, Vic) and Moon Mist(1942, Vic.).

About the Index



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himself as a soloist with his orchestra, he was nevertheless a remarkably individual contributor to

the overall Ellington effect. He saw himself primarily as a catalyst and an accompanist, a feeder of

ideas and rhythmic energy to the band as a whole or to its soloists. In this unobtrusive role, playing

only when necessary, he was known for remaining silent during entire choruses or indeed pieces.

His piano tone, produced deep in the keys, was the richest and most resonant imaginable; it had the

ability to energize and inspire the entire orchestra. Although he was an erratic soloist in his early

years and sometimes relied on pianistic clichs incessant downward-fluttering arpeggios, for

instance Ellington could on occasion vie with the best players. An outstanding example of his work

as a pianist-composer is Clothed Woman (1947, Col.), remarkable for its virtually complete atonality(ex.1). He also wrote a Piano Method for Blues (New York, 1943).

Ex.1 Introduction to Clothed Woman (1947, Col.); transcr. G. Schuller

3. Compositions.

Ellington is generally recognized as the most important composer in jazz history. Most of the

enormous number of works he recorded are his own; the exact number of his compositions is

unknown, but is estimated at about 2000, including hundreds of three-minute instrumental pieces

(for 78 r.p.m. recordings), popular songs (many consisting of instrumental pieces to which lyrics by

Irving Mills and others were added), large-scale suites, several musical comedies, many film scores

and an incomplete and unperformed opera, Boola. Ellington combined a flair for orchestration with

extraordinary gifts as a bandleader; while other jazz composers had comparable talent, they lacked

the organizational abilities necessary to create and maintain a permanent orchestral vehicle. The

excerpt from Ko-Ko (ex.2), showing the orchestration of a passage from an ensemble section, is

one of the most remarkable pieces in all of Ellingtons writing.

Ex.2 From Ko-Ko (1940, Vic.); transcr. G. Schuller (all parts notated at sounding pitch)

Courtesy of Gunther Schuller

Ellington was one of the first musicians to concern himself with composition and musical form in jazz

as distinct from improvisation, tune writing and arranging. In Concerto for Cootie, ten-bar phrases

are combined into a complex ternary form which abandons the chorus structure common to most

jazz. In Cotton Tail, from the same period, Ellington made use of a call-and-response technique of

writing in order to heighten the drama of the last climactic chorus (ex.3). Black, Brown and Beige

uses symphonic devices (the fragmentation and development of motifs, thematic recall and mottoes)

as well as symphonic proportions in its several sections; it is thus perhaps unique among Ellingtons

earlier works, showing a preoccupation with form far in advance of his contemporaries. Only a few

jazz musicians (among them Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus and Gil Evans) have followed

Ellington in this respect.

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Ex.3 From the fifth chorus of Cotton Tail (1940, Vic.); transcr. G. Schuller (all parts notated at sounding pitch)

Courtesy of Gunther Schuller

Ellingtons prodigious productivity makes an overview of his work virtually impossible. But it is

generally agreed that he attained the zenith of his creativity in the late 1930s and early 1940s, andthat he worked best in the miniature forms dictated by the three-minute ten-inch disc. His creativity

declined somewhat after the 1940s, many of the late-period extended compositions and multi-

movement suites generally suffering, despite their occasional visionary inspirations, from a

diminished, less consistent originality and hasty work, mostly occasioned by incessant touring. But

even lesser Ellington is bound to be of above-average quality, and the work in recent years of

Wynton Marsalis and his Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestras championing of Ellingtons late work has

led to a more favourable assessment in many quarters. Serious study of Ellingtons oeuvre has also

been hampered by an almost total absence to date of his scores in published form, having thus to

rely on transcriptions from recordings. However, in recent years the newly acquired holdings of

several hundred thousand sheets of Ellingtons scores and parts at the Smithsonian Institute has at

last provided easier access to the immensity of Ellingtons oeuvre.

Bibliography

Search RILM

Discographies and film guides

L. Massagli, L. Pusateri and G.M. Volont: Duke Ellingtons Story on Records (Milan, 196683)

W.E. Timner: Ellingtonia: the Recorded Music of Duke Ellington and his Sidemen (Metuchen, NJ, 3/1988)

O.J. Nielsen: Jazz Records, 194280: a Discography, vi, ed. E. Rabin (Copenhagen, 1989)

K. Stratemann: Duke Ellington: Day by Day and Film by Film (Copenhagen, c1992)

J. Valburn: Duke Ellington on Compact Disc(Hicksville, NY, 1993)

Biographies

D. Preston: Mood Indigo (Egham, 1946)

J. de Trazegnies: Duke Ellington: Harlem Aristocrat of Jazz(Brussels, 1946)

B. Ulanov: Duke Ellington (New York, 1946/R)

P. Gammond, ed.: Duke Ellington: his Life and Music(London, 1958/R)

G.E. Lambert: Duke Ellington (London, 1959); repr. in Kings of Jazz, ed. S. Green (South Brunswick, NJ,

About the Index



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S. Dance: The World of Duke Ellington (London, 1970/R) [collection of previously pubd articles and

interviews]

D. Ellington: Music is my Mistress (Garden City, NY, 1973; index by H.F. Huon pubd separately, Melbourne,

c1977, 2/1982)

D. Jewell: Duke: a Portrait of Duke Ellington (London, 1977, 2/1978)

S. Dance and D. Morgenstern: disc notes, Giants of Jazz: Duke Ellington, TL J02 (1978)

M. Ellington and S. Dance: Duke Ellington in Person: an Intimate Memoir(Boston, 1978)

D. George: The Real Duke Ellington (London, 1982)

H. Ruland: Duke Ellington: sein Leben, seine Musik, seine Schallplatten (Gauting, 1983)

P. Gammond: Duke Ellington (London, 1987) [incl. discography]

J.L. Collier: Duke Ellington (New York, 1987)

General studies and essays

R.D. Darrell: Black Beauty, Disques [Philadelphia], iii/4 (19323), 15261

R. de Toledano: Frontiers of Jazz(New York, 1947, 2/1962)

V. Bellerby: Duke Ellington, JazzM, i (1955), no.9, pp.267; no.l0, pp.2830; i/12 (1956), 911, 31; ii/2

(1956), 2830

N. Shapiro and N. Hentoff, eds.: The Jazz Makers: Essays of the Greats of Jazz(New York, 1957/R)

W. Balliett: Ecstasy at the Onion (New York, 1971) [collection of previously pubd articles and reviews]

L. Feather: From Satchmo to Miles (New York, 1972)

R. Stewart: Jazz Masters of the Thirties (New York, c1972)

A. McCarthy: Big Band Jazz(New York, 1974/R)

R.J. Gleason: Celebrating the Duke: and Louis, Bessie, Billie, Bird, Carmen, Miles, Dizzy and other Heroes

(Boston, 1975), 153266 [incl. A Ducal Calendar 19521974, 169262]

M. Tucker, ed.: The Duke Ellington Reader(New York, 1993)

Musical analyses

A. Hodier: Hommes et problmes du jazz, suivi de La religion du jazz(Paris, 1954; Eng. trans., rev. 1956/R,

2/1979, as Jazz: its Evolution and Essence)

M. Clar: The Style of Duke Ellington, JR, ii/3 (1959), 610

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Copyright Oxford University Press 2007 2013.

M. Harrison: TheAnatomy of a MurderMusic, JR, ii/10 (1959), 356

M. Harrison: Ellingtons Back to Back, JR, iii/3 (1960), 245

A.J. Bishop: Dukes Creole Rhapsody, JazzM, ix/9 (19634), 1213

M. Harrison: Duke Ellington: Reflections on Some of the Larger Works, JazzM, ix/11 (19634), 1215

A. Bishop: Reminiscing in Tempo: an Analysis, JJ, xvii/2 (1964), 56

W. Mellers: Music in a New Found Land: Themes and Developments in the History of American Music

(London, 1964/R)

W.W. Austin: Music in the 20th Century: from Debussy through Stravinsky(New York, 1966)

G. Schuller: The Ellington Style: its Origins and Early Development, Early Jazz: its Roots and Musical

Development(New York, 1968/R), 31857

E. Lambert: Duke Ellington on Reprise, JJ, xxii/5 (1969), 24

E. Lambert: Quality Jazz, no.l4: Duke Ellingtons Nutcracker Suite, JJ, xxii/11 (1969), 11 only

B. Priestley: Duke Ellingtons Greatest Recordings and the Far East Suite, JazzM, xv/1 (1969), 1719

A.J. Bishop: The Protean Imagination of Duke Ellington: the Early Years, JJ, xxiv (1971), no.10, pp.24;

no.12, pp.1214

M. Elliott: Duke and the Blues, JJ, xxvii/11 (1974), 1819

B. Priestley and A. Cohen: Black, Brown and Beige, Composer, no.51 (1974), 337; no.52 (1974), 2932;

no.53 (19745), 2932

C. Sheridan: Piano in the Background, Into Jazz, i/6 (1974), 6

G. Schuller: Musings (New York, 1986), 4759

G. Schuller: Duke Ellington: Master Composer, The Swing Era: the Development of Jazz, 19301945(New

York, 1989), 46157

Oral history material in US-NH; recordings and other material in US-DN; collection of scores in George

P. Vanier Library of Cancordia University, Montreal

Andr Hodeir/Gunther Schuller

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ellington, duke in oxford music online

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