Monday, April 28, 2008

Duke Ellington, African American Composer, Pianist and Bandleader, Born April 29, 1899


[The Definitive Duke Ellington; Sony 61444 (2000)]

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (1899-1974) was an African American composer, pianist and jazz band leader. He was born into a middle-class family in Washington, D.C. on April 29, 1899. Although best known for composing, leading and performing about 2,000 "big band" jazz pieces, Ellington also composed orchestral, chamber and solo piano works in the classical genre. His classical music has gradually gained new listeners in recent years due to recordings on CD.

Africana Encyclopedia recounts Ellington's association with the Cotton Club in Harlem: “In the fall of 1927 the Ellington orchestra secured a long-term gig at the Cotton Club, New York City's most prestigious nightclub, which was wired to permit 'live' remote radio broadcasts that gave
Ellington nationwide recognition.”
In keeping with the times, the Cotton Club was racially segregated. Only whites were admitted as patrons; all of the waiters and most of the entertainers were African American. During the engagement at the Cotton Club the band was called the Cotton Club Orchestra.

In 1943 Ellington and his orchestra performed at New York's legendary Carnegie Hall. The program included a ground-breaking 44-minute work entitled Black, Brown, and Beige: A Tone Parallel to the History of the American Negro. The work did not fit the conventions of either jazz or classical music, and the response of music critics was so disappointing that Ellington never again performed the entire piece in public. However, Africana Encyclopedia notes: “Neither Ellington nor Strayhorn were dissuaded from creating other large-scale jazz suites, including the Liberian Suite (1947); Harlem (1951); the Festival Suite (1956); Such Sweet Thunder (1957), a musical tribute to Shakespeare; Suite Thursday ( 1960), which paid tribute to author John Steinbeck; and the Far East Suite (1966).

Ellington also composed film scores for Anatomy of a Murder (1959) and Paris Blues (1961). Ellington's Piano Concerto was premiered in 1955 by Don Shirley and the NBC Symphony of the Air, at Carnegie Hall. Ellington began exploring spiritual themes with his Concert of Sacred Music in 1965. Africana Encyclopedia says of the work: “In the Beginning, God, Ellington's opening movement, won a 1966 Grammy Award for best original jazz composition. In 1968 Ellington composed a Second Sacred Concert. At the time of his death he was preparing a third.

Ellington participated in the Civil Rights movement from the 1940s on. In 1941 he wrote the score for the musical
Jump for Joy, a show intended to debunk common movie stereotypes of African American popular culture. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra, led by Neeme Järvi, Conductor, has recorded three of Ellington's works for symphony orchestra on CDs released by the British label Chandos. Harlem, Suite from "The River" and Solitude are found on Chandos 9909 (2001). Suite from "The River" also appears on an earlier disc, Chandos 9154 (1993). Harlem is also found on Chandos 9226 (1993). Full Biography







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