DUKE ELLINGTON (1899-1974)

Born Edward Kennedy ‘Duke’ Ellington, Ellington’s mother and father had a piano each and studied James P Johnson’s piano rolls when he was young. He worked his way up in the Washington dance band scene and eventually settled in Harlem, NewYork in the spring of 1923where he became leader of The Washingtonians. The recruitment of trumpeter James ‘Bubber’ Miley (his plunger mute would define what was called the ‘jungle sound’ in the Cotton Club days) helped to define the Duke’s ‘new sound. Unfortunately Miley was an alcoholic and Ellington had to fire him and replace him with Cootie Williams and ‘Bubber’ died two years later from tuberculosis. The Duke woud always come up with crack musicians, not necessarily household names, and in Wellman Braud on bass and Sonny Greer on drums he had a strong rhythm section. As a pianist Ellington’s playing was based on the tradition of Harlem stride players but he developed his own unique and instantly recognisable touch. He became a regular at the Cotton Club in 1927 and toured Europe with his bands in the 1930s during which time he composed Serenade to Sweden. Ellington’s bands also played at the annual Carnegie Hall concerts in the 1940s. During the 1940s the Duke worked closely with fellow composer and arranger Billy Strayhorn and gifted bass player Jimmy Blanton was a useful addition to his line-up during that period.

Among Ellington’s most famous recordings are East St. Louis Toodle-Oo (1926), so successfully covered by Steely Dan on their classic Pretzel Logic LP; Black and Tan Fantasy (1927) which referenced Frederic Chopin; Black Beauty (1928), a tribute to back singer and dancer Florence Mills Wall Street Wail (1929);as well as his Hot Feet stomp, Mood Indigo, Solitude, The Mooche and It Don’t Mean A Thing. Cotton Tail was an arrangement based on the chords of Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm Landmark albums included Black, Brown and Beige (1946, enigmatically subtitled A Tone Parallel to the American Negro) (1958), Ellington At Newport (1956), Such Sweet Thunder, Back To Back (1959), a collection of blues with saxophonist Johnny Hodges and trumpeter Harry ‘Sweets’ Edison, three separate albums with Paul Gonsalves, Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane in 1962. Also in 1962 was Money Jungle with the Duke accompanied by Charles Mingus and Max Roach. The Far East Suite (1966) is another landmark recording with two particularly fine pieces, Isfahan and Mount Harissa inspired by a tour of Indian, Pakistan and Ceylon and elsewhere.

Wynton Marsalis has been on record as saying that Ellington’s music “codified the sound of America in the twentieth century”and it is not difficult to find similar statements attesting to the Duke’s status in jazz music. It is also often pointed out that his was a “democratic vision of music” where the whole was definitely more important than the sum of the parts even if that part was the leader himself. It is also undeniable that he holds the record as the most prolific composer of the twentieth century with circa 2,000 pieces to his name. Much of the effectiveness of Ellington’s music is that it could be a hybrid straddling popular jazz with more unconventional moves. As Chris Searle so aptly put it Ellington’s music was epitomised by “extraordinary sophistication” and “many levels of meaning” from “one of the great musical imaginations of the twentieth century.” (   ) p 11 In his own words Duke Elington liked the ‘shock of the new’ that volume and unpredictability provoked.

As a civil rights activist Ellington was contrained by how far he could go in the Cotton Club playing to a white audience with subservient black waiters, an audience that were largely oblivious or ambivalent to any coded messages within the music and one which perceived the music as purely entertainment. ‘Harlem’ and ‘Jungle’ frequently appeared in the titles of his tunes. It was, in Searle’s words, “a superficial exotic caricature of Africa played by black men in European suits and with familiar European instruments.” (   ) p 61 At A Dixie Roadside, is described by Searle as “intriguingly ambivalent”, intriguing because the innocence of the title belies the song being set in Carolina and depicting an inter-racial love affair. (   ) p 10-11 Perhaps this was an early sign of Ellington breaking away from the constraints that a segregationist establishment imposed. Another signpost was his recruitment of West Indian ‘Tricky’ Sam Nanton whom Ellington described as “Bubber’s plunger mate” who introduced the music traditions of the Caribbean and the politics of Marcus Garvey into a music that had another kind of story to tell other than the ‘sanitised’, somewhat ironic tunes of earlier times.

Nearly a decade after being ‘released’ from the Cotton Club Ellington assembled what is widely regarded as his greatest orchestra and was playing concerts alongside Paul Robeson and Josh White, as well as many famous jazz musicians and band leaders in an increasingly politicised way. Opposing fascism, racism and supporting industrial trade unionism (Ellington’s Stevedore Stomp was written with black workers in the Port of Harlem in mind) , Haile Selassie’s Ethopia against the invading marauders of Mussolini and Spanish republicans in their fight against Franco, the Popular Front found the support of many in the jazz world and the campaign to elect the back Communist candidate Benjamin Davis to the New York City Council, backed by Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and many others. Ellington also composed the music for the musical Jump for Joy (1941) which celebrated black creativity and looked forward to a new era of freedom from oppression, in the words of one of the songs bidding farewell to the “land of cotton”.