• April 29, 1899 - May 24, 1974
• Edward Kennedy Ellington, aka Duke Ellington, wrote over 1,000 compositions in his lifetime as a Jazz band-leader, composer and pianist, including Jazz standards, film scores and classical works. His middle name is his mother's maiden name, taken as a tribute to her memory and inherited by his only son, Mercer Kennedy Ellington.
• Ellington's father worked as a butler at the White House.
• Despite the fact that both of his parents were amateur pianists, Ellington preferred baseball to piano lessons when he was a child.
• Ellington's first composition was "Soda Fountain Rag," written when he worked at a soda bar as a teenager.
• In 1917, Ellington dropped out of high-school to pursue his music. 1917 was a significant year for Jazz, seeing the first official Jazz recording in music history. This first ever Jazz single was called "Livery Stable Blues," by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. This white group were credited for many years as the originators of the genre, something which is now known to be untrue.
• Instead of using the term "jazz," Ellington preferred to call his genre Negro Music and American Music, possibly because the term Jazz was coined in the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and used in the white press. Later he was quoted saying, "By and large, Jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with."
• From 1927 to 1930, Duke Ellington and his Cotton Club Orchestra played the infamous Cotton Club in Harlem, New York. This notorious club, owned and run from his jail cell by the gangster Owney Madden, was a great place to be seen and heard by New York's finest during the prohibition era. True to form, within the first year Ellington had his first hit record alongside the Jazz singer Adelaide Hall, called "Creole Love Call," to international acclaim.
• The famous Bebop musician Miles Davis is quoted as expressing Ellington's musical importance, saying, "At least one day out of the year, all musicians should just put their instruments down, and give thanks to Duke Ellington." When Ellington described Davis' early style of jazz, he said that "Playing 'bop' [bebop] is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing."
• Duke Ellington was religious from childhood, and believed that he led a blessed life guided by some holy force to fame and fortune. In the last decade of life, his religiosity was given musical expression in the three Sacred Concerts, which he said was "the most important thing I have ever done." The music for these concerts shows a curious blend of traditional religious hymn tradition and Jazz styles.
• The British composer and conductor Constant Lambert called Ellington the "first Negro composer of significance."
• After quitting the Cotton Club, in order to escape the Great Depression soon to ravage the USA, Ellington and his band embarked on a world-tour with his band that would last nearly half a century.
• In a strange tradition, at the end of his concerts Ellington would say to the crowd "We love you madly."

Comments

More Songfacts:

StayLisa Loeb

"Stay" by Lisa Loeb was the first #1 hit by an unsigned artist. It got a boost from Ethan Hawke, who got it into a movie he starred in called Reality Bites.

S&MRihanna

Rihanna claims that "S&M" is about her love/hate relationship with the media. Apparently her paparazzi are using whips and chains.

Mr. Tambourine ManBob Dylan

Bob Dylan's original version of "Mr. Tambourine Man," released on his album Bringing It All Back Home, has no tambourine, just guitars and harmonica.

I Go To ExtremesBilly Joel

Lindsay Lohan has some lyrics from Billy Joel's "I Go To Extremes" tattooed on her ribcage: "Clear as a crystal, sharp as a knife I feel like I'm in the prime of my life."

I Want It That WayBackstreet Boys

"I Want It That Way" is the most popular Backstreet Boys song, but the lyric doesn't make much sense. That's because it was written by the hitmaking swedish producers Max Martin and Andreas Carlsson, who were more worried about how it sings than what it means.

Watching The WheelsJohn Lennon

In the late '70s, John Lennon slowed his roll, becoming a househusband who baked bread and took care of his young son Sean. This inspired his song "Watching The Wheels," where he discovers the benefits of taking it easy.

Editor's Picks

Jesus Thinks You're a Jerk: Rock vs. TelevangelistsSong Writing

When televangelists like Jimmy Swaggart took on rockers like Ozzy Osbourne and Metallica, the rockers retaliated. Bono could even be seen mocking the preachers.

Creedence Clearwater RevivalFact or Fiction

Is "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" about Vietnam? Was John Fogerty really born on a Bayou? It's the CCR edition of Fact or Fiction.

Five Rockers Who Rolled With The DevilSong Writing

Just how much did these monsters of rock dabble in the occult?

Does Jimmy Page Worship The Devil? A Look at Satanism in RockSong Writing

We ring the Hell's Bells to see what songs and rockers are sincere in their Satanism, and how much of it is an act.

Who's Johnny, And Why Does He Show Up In So Many SongsSong Writing

For songwriters, Johnny represents the American man. He has been angry, cool, magic, a rebel and, of course, marching home.

Roger McGuinn of The ByrdsSongwriter Interviews

Roger reveals the songwriting formula Clive Davis told him, and if "Eight Miles High" is really about drugs.