April 29
SIR DUKE DAY
The man who became one of the twentieth century’s finest composers, Edward Kennedy Ellington, was born on this day in 1899 in Washington, D.C. Right from the git-go, the handsome, sharply dressed teenager (that’s where he got the nickname, Duke) was headed for success.
At first it was art. He won a poster-design contest and an art scholarship, left school and started a sign-painting business.
But it was his natural piano-playing ability that attracted the young women, so Duke Ellington headed in that direction. He played with Elmer Snowden’s band and took over leadership in 1925. They played and stayed at New York’s Cotton Club from 1927 through 1931, broadcasting shows live on the radio. From then on it was tours, recordings, and history in the making. Ellington would be one of the founders of big band jazz.
With the players in his band as his instruments, the Duke would create big band pieces, film scores, operas, ballets, Broadway shows, even gospel music. He would work with each section of his orchestra as an entity unto its own and then bring them together to create the unique sounds such as, Mood Indigo. Over 1,000 musical pieces are credited to the great Duke Ellington. James Lincoln Collier studied the Duke and his Orchestra, comparing Duke Ellington to a “master chef who plans the menus, trains the assistants, supervises them, tastes everything, adjusts the spices ... and in the end we credit him with the result.”
Andre Previn said, “Duke merely lifts his finger, three horns make a sound, and I don’t know what it is.”
According to Duke Ellington, who died in 1974, “There are only two kinds of music: good and bad.”
Those Were the Days, the Today in History service from 440 International
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