Black Music Sunday: A month of Duke Ellington tributes comes to an end

As Duke Ellington wrote in his memoir, published the year before he died: “What is music to you? What would you be without music? Music is everything.”

I read his words and wonder: What would music be without Ellington’s gifts to us all? This story wraps up our 2024 Jazz Appreciation Month series, which we kicked off with a tribute to The Duke. We’ll finish the month similarly—April 29 is Ellington’s 125th birthday!

Over the years, I’ve written several stories that feature and celebrate Ellington, and each one reminds me that no single story can even begin to scratch the surface of his massive musical impact—including this one. And so I especially look forward to your comments and contributions this week. 

Let’s get this party going!

”Black Music Sunday” is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over 200 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was born on April 29, 1899, in Washington, D.C., and joined the ancestors on May 24, 1974, at age 75. For many readers, he needs no introduction. But all of us benefit from being introduced to or reviewing his life history. This 1988 PBS “American Masters” episode, “A Duke Named Ellington,” is a good starting point, covering both his history and his impact on the world of music.

You can watch the full two-hour episode below!

PBS’ “A Duke Named Ellington” show page notes his piano education at the hands of his mama, which led to him starting his career as a pianist at 17. He soon started to compose original music, and by age 25, he’d formed his own band, The Washingtonians, after relocating to New York City. A couple of years later, he was a regular at the iconic Cotton Club in Harlem, which changed everything.

In 1931 Ellington left the Cotton Club and began a series of extended tours that would continue for the rest of his life. For Ellington, the big band was not simply made up of five reeds, four trumpets, three trombones, drums, a bass, and a piano; it was made up of individuals. Where other composers had concerned themselves with creating a sound that unified the many instruments into one voice, Ellington believed in letting the dissonant voices of each musician play against each other. He wrote music that capitalized on the particular style and skills of his soloists. For this and many other reasons, his soloists often stayed with him for extended periods. Among the best members of his band were Jimmy Blanton, Johnny Hodges, Cootie Williams, and Harry Carney (who was in the band for nearly every one of its forty-seven years).

On the Duke Ellington Orchestra website, Ellington biographer and Smithsonian Curator Emeritus John Edward Hasse wrote:

No one led a band like Duke Ellington. No one led a life like Duke Ellington. And no one wrote music like Duke Ellington. He was one of a kind, beyond category.

Widely remembered as a pianist, Duke was much more. In my judgment, he was America’s greatest all-around musician: composer, orchestrator-arranger, conductor-bandleader, soloist, accompanist, and musical thinker. He was the supreme creator of music for that essential American institution: the jazz orchestra or big band.

Ellington’s band and his composing made a profound yin-yang: he couldn’t have one without the other. He composed the vast majority of the band’s repertoire. He wrote only for his band. And the band played mostly Ellington’s music—composed and/or arranged by him. He hated being pigeonholed as strictly a jazz musician. Over his astonishingly productive fifty-year career leading the Duke Ellington Orchestra, he composed songs, short instrumentals, multi-movement suites, scores for ballets and motion pictures, and Broadway-bound musicals.

He was mostly known as a miniaturist for his three-minute evergreens such as Mood Indigo, Sophisticated Lady, and In a Sentimental Mood. But his lesser-known, large-scale works provided him with canvasses to tell bigger stories, inspired by, among other topics, African American history, his overseas travels, and his reverence for God. He expressed a drive to be the best, to create a unique sound and to break out of musical categories, a deep respect for his heritage—and, increasingly, a faith in the Divine.

One way to gauge a musician’s impact is by taking a look at how they are honored by other musicians. With Ellington, the list of tributes is far too long for me to embed them all here—see Discogs for all 750. Instead, I’ll share a few of my favorites.

At the top of my playlist (this week, anyway) is “Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington.”

As reviewer Lindsey Planer writes for AllMusic:

Monk commands a trio that also presents the talents of Oscar Pettiford (bass) and Kenny Clarke (drums) on all the tracks sans “Solitude,” which appropriately enough features an unaccompanied piano. The delicacy and inherently intricate melodies that Duke Ellington is best known for are perfectly matched to Monk’s angular and progressive interpretations.

Jazz reviewers and critics have had mixed takes on this album, but I’m siding with those who like it.

RELATED STORY: The singular genius of Thelonious Monk

“Earl Hines plays Duke Ellington” is a masterpiece that should be in every Ellington fan’s collection. From the New World Records liner notes:

This was one of Earl Hines’s last great achievements on records, and it displays the full range of his genius: an amazing rhythmic imagination, a dazzling, rather aristocratic finesse (somewhat akin to Ellington’s own) in terms of pianistic touch; and a knack for making even profound ideas seem spontaneously conceived.

   －BBC Music Magazine － “The Fifty All-Time Great Jazz Discs”

[…]

All of Hines’s resources are brought forward and the individual pieces have an unpredictability that makes each of them some special sort of delight. There is the introduction to “Heaven” that reminds one of the harmonies of “Crepuscule with Nellie,” the opening of “’C’ Jam Blues” that shows astonishing originality of rhythm, the freedom of the playing of “Black Butterfly,” the range of mood brought to “Creole Love Call,” and so on. One hears a totally unexpected sweep of left-hand inventions, reharmonizations—such as the endings of “Mood Indigo” and “I’m Beginning to See the Light”—that are shocking, and a clarity of sound and scope of attack that express a personality too distinctive to take presence through clichés. When Earl Hines made these recordings, he was the seasoned resource only a great artist can be.

Here’s “I’m Beginning to See The Light.”

Great jazz vocalists also love Ellington—many have done full albums of his tunes. Let’s start with Ella Fitzgerald, scatting “Rockin’ in Rhythm.”

It’s no secret I’m a major vocalese fan, and Lambert, Hendricks & Ross top my favorites list. Here’s their complete 1960 album with the Ike Isaacs Trio, “Lambert, Hendricks & Ross Sing Ellington.”

The 1973 hourlong special “Duke Ellington: We Love You Madly” was produced for television by Quincy Jones and featured a star-studded cast.

 Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Peggy Lee, Sammy Davis Jr., Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack, Sarah Vaughan, Billy Eckstine, Count Basie, Joe Williams, Ella Fitzgerald, Chicago, Cootie Williams, Clark Terry, Paul Gonsalves, Harry Carney, Cat Anderson, Louie Bellson.The All Star Band (collectively):- Cat Anderson, Bill Berry, Bobby Bryant, Ernie Royal, Clark Terry, Snooky Young, Cootie Williams, Al Aarons, trumpet; Jimmy Cleveland, Bob Brookmeyer, Maurice Spears, Tyree Glenn, Britt Woodman, trombone; Pete Christlieb, Bill Perkins, Marshall Royal, Russell Procope, Jerome Richardson, Murray McEachern, Bill Green, Paul Gonsalves, Harry Carney, reeds; Vince DeRosa, Art Maebe, Richard Perissi, Fr hrn; Red Callender, tuba; Dave Grusin, keyboards; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Ray Brown, Chuck Rainey, acoustic double bass; Louie Bellson, Paul Humphrey, drums; Larry Bunker, percussion; + strings including Edgar Lustgarten, cello; Quincy Jones, music director. (Personnel on Camera)                                                    
 Filmed at The Shubert Theatre, Los Angeles.                                                    

Thanks to the blessing of YouTube, we’re also able to see this live vocal tribute to the Duke (and others).

Ellington also did some amazing collaborations, some of which were featured earlier in this month of Duke. I also covered his Sacred Concerts in 2022.

RELATED STORY: Black Music Sunday: Let’s celebrate Easter with Ellington’s Sacred Concerts

For Ellington aficionados: If you haven’t already visited Ellingtonia, I suggest that you do so—and bookmark it. 

“Some Day all the jazz musicians should get together in one place and get down on their knees and thank Duke.”

— Miles Davis

About this site

The principal aim of this site is to provide as full an on-line discography of the recorded works of Duke Ellington as possible. The discography was created by Marcus Girvan, drawing on many sources including Massagli and Volonté’s “The New DESOR”, The DEMS Bulletin and archive, DESUK’s “Blue Light”, Ken Vail’s “Duke’s Diary”, Dr. Stratemann’s “Duke Ellington – Day by Day and Film by Film”, Mark Tucker’s “Ellington – The Early Years” and last but by no means least, David Palmquist’s “The Duke: Where And When” (TDWAW), the essential guide to The Duke’s itinerary.

I have a big soft spot in my heart for Ellington’s signature tune by Billy Strayhorn, “Take The A Train,” for two reasons. First, I’m a native New Yorker who rode the A train to Harlem more times than I could count, and second, because in 1977, we launched Washington, D.C.’s Pacifica radio station, where I was the program director, with that tune.  

In closing, let’s check in on the the new generation of jazz artists who are carrying Ellington’s music forward. Here’s Samara Joy, performing “Sophisticated Lady”:

Please join me in the comments and post your favorite Ellington songs, tributes, stories, and quotes!  I look forward to listening.

Happy Duke Day!

Campaign Action