Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy Ellington was born in Washington, D.C. on April 29 1899. His name was a combination of his fathers, James Edward and his mothers, Daisy Kennedy. The title of "Duke" was given to him as a young man and it was with this nickname that he developed the persona of elegance and smoothness that he presented the rest of his life, particularly when it came to women. His charming "lines" flowed freely to any woman in the room and the sincere manner that he delivered them left just about any woman floating on air. He would say, "I can tell that you're an angel; I can see the reflection from your halo shining on the ceiling." Or, "My, but you make that dress look lovely!"

His suave demeanor and presentation in public of the utmost self assurance with his audience and his fans perpetuated an air about him but in private Duke had many superstitions. The author James Lincoln Collier writes:

"He would not wear certain colors; he would not give or receive gifts of shoes, which suggested that the recipient would use them to walk away; he was afraid of drafts and kept the windows around him closed at all times; he was frightened of flying and refused to do it until the demands of travel forced him into planes; and he subjected himself to many similar taboos. Ellington was hardly the first person to be superstitious, but his collection of taboos make a richer array than most people possess. It is difficult to find an explanation for them."

Patricia Willard wrote of her observations of Dukes superstitions:

"I know once he had put all the telegrams he received at an opening around his mirror, some of them from very famous people. When the engagement was over and he was packing up his stuff and the valet was packing his clothes I started to take the telegrams down. He said, "No, don't touch those. Leave them there." I asked why.
"It's bad luck to take down your opening night telegrams."
The last twenty five years of his life that I knew him, he never had a watch and wouldn't wear one, but yet he always wanted to know what time it was."

Cornetist Rex Stewart recalls Dukes disdain for missing buttons saying:

"I have often seen him abruptly stride off stage to change after a button fell off. During that period when I was with the band, some lucky fellow would be the proud possessor of an Ellington suit or jacket, as Duke would not wear a garment after it lost a button."

Other than Ellington's superstitions another private quirky trait he had was his appetite. Legendary would be one way to describe his eating habits. In the 1940's Derek Jewell observed in awe Dukes eating by writing:

"With the amount of energy he expended, he needed fuel and these were the years of Ellington the gourmand rather than the gourmet. Many descriptions of typical Ellington menus exist from this period, revealing, so often, a man whose virtuous resolution to keep his weight down collapsed in stages so that he ended up eating three or four separate meals in succession.

Maybe he started well, with breakfast cereal and black tea, proclaiming that this would be enough. Then, viewing companions carving at steaks, he would add, straight faced, a plain steak. Several minutes might elapse before the will to resist finally disintegrated. A second steak, onions, french fries, salad, with a Maine lobster on the side might next appear. Then fruit and cheese, and, with coffee, a specially concocted Ellington dessert, for which he was renowned; chocolate cake, custard, ice cream, jelly, apple sauce, and whipped cream. He adored ham and eggs, so that might be added as an afterthought, with pancakes and syrup, of course. The after-afterthought would be a resumption of the diet: cereal and black tea to finish with."

Duke's style of writing catered to different sounds that many people had never heard. He loved creating ambient landscapes with his musicians which lead to the term or "Jungle Music" by his fans. Because he used his orchestra in much the same way he played the piano Duke was by far a very easy man to work for. The way he saw it, he would rather cater to a musician so that he could the exact sound he wanted rather than reprimand him and risk loosing the unique quality of the performance. If a musician did however start hindering the vision of where he wanted the band to go Duke didn't fire him, he just made things so uncomfortable for them that they left on their own. If drinking became a problem Duke would give them a solo and keep calling chorus after chorus until the pressure sobered them up real quick. Another trick he would use is he would simply hire a better musician to sit beside the troublesome one and play the exact the same part; he even did this with drummers and bass players. Duke's drummer Sam Woodyard didn't show up one night for a gig so Duke hired a local drummer to replace him. Sam finally showed up to the job and Duke had him set up right beside the local drummer and both of them started the set. Sam was wise to what Duke was doing and he slowly started to play with the time of the music here and there throwing the local guy off until he had enough and he resigned and Duke had his band back together the way he wanted it. Grover Mitchell wrote about his first few days after joining Ellington's band:

"I had only been working with him for about a week. The first night or two everbody had gotten on the bandstand and had really roared. But the next two, three or four nights, maybe there would be five or six of us on the bandstand and eight or ten guys walking around out in the audience talking to people or at the bar. One night we were on the bandstand and a waiter came up and told Jimmy Hamilton that his steak was ready. He stepped off the bandstand and started cutting into a steak. Later I says to Duke, "Man, how can you put up with this?"
And he told me, "Look, let me tell you something. I live for the nights that this band is great. I don't worry about nights like what you're worrying about. If you pay attention to these people, they will drive you crazy. They're not gonna drive me crazy."

Many musicians aspired to play with Duke even if was for just one night. The opportunity to say that you had played in his band was a badge of honor and some musicians even left their own bands to do so. The drummer Lee Young talks about when he got that chance:

"Duke was opening at the Trianon Ballroom the same night we were opening at Billy Berg's. So Ben Webster and Jimmy Blanton called me and said, "Sonny Greer is not gonna make it tonight. You better come on and open with us." I told them that it was my opening night, that my name was out front, Lee and Lester Young. I told Billy Berg, "I'm gonna go play with Duke tonight. You'll have to get another drummer." "What do you mean? You are the leader!"
"I don't care. I may not ever get a chance again in my life to play with Duke and I'm not gonna give this up." I had signed a contract with the man, but Billy Berg was very fond of me. "You've got to be the craziest man in the world. How can you be the leader of the band and not make your opening?" "There's no need talking about it. I'm going to play with Duke tonight." Luckily, when I came back the next night I still had a job."

Duke Ellington was the most prolific composer of American music the world has ever known having wrote nearly 2000 different pieces of music. Many claim that he is the most important figure to come from the Jazz world, a point Duke would probably humbly deny. Duke never really called what he did anything other than music saying in interviews: "I am a bandleader and I am a composer." "I like any and all of my associations with music writing, playing, and listening. We write and play from our perspective, and the audience listens from its perspective. If and when we agree, I am lucky."

Duke Ellington died on May 24, 1974 of lung cancer. He is buried in Woodlawn cemetery in the Bronx, New York. In 1997 a large memorial to Duke Ellington, was dedicated in New York's Central Park, near Fifth Avenue and 110th Street, an intersection named Duke Ellington Circle. I'll leave you with a quote from Jazz critic Leonard Feather on Duke's influence on other musician's:

"He has withheld his throne from the grasp of thirty years of pretenders, imitated but inimitable. What he has done in those thirty years was best summed up one evening at the Opera House in San Francisco by Andre' Previn, a musician who was not born when the Cotton Club era began. "You know," he said, "Stan Kenton can stand in front of a thousand fiddles and a thousand brass and make a dramatic gesture and every studio arranger can nod his head and say, "Oh yes, that's done like this." But Duke merely lifts his finger, three horns make a sound and I don't know what it is!"

Greg