Edward Kennedy Ellington was born in 1899. He grew up in Washington, D.C. Both of his parents played the piano so, not surprisingly, young Edward grew up in a home that was filled with all sorts of music: everything from parlor songs, to the arias from famous operas. Despite growing up in a time in which laws were enacted that openly discriminated against people of colour (i.e., “Jim Crow” laws), the Ellingtons raised their son to be proud of his heritage and who he was as a person. They dressed him in the finest clothes they could afford. They taught him proper manners and expected him to be polite and gracious while in public. But most of all, the Ellingtons gave their son the great gift of musical literacy. Long before this dapper little dude was dubbed by his friends as “The Duke”, he had a solid understanding of compositional construction. In fact, he would create his first piece of music, called the “Soda Fountain Rag”, as a teenager before knowing how to record even a single note of music on paper. That would come in time. As a teenager, Duke Ellington was already exhibiting one of his musical calling cards that he would carry with him all throughout his career as a composer, which was his ability to take a single composition, such as the “Soda Fountain Rag”, and improvise a variety of alternative variations of the initial composition. In that way, one composition often yielded ten or more variations and gave others the impression that Ellington was more prolific than he actually was when he first started out.
Initially, Ellington preferred sports to music, and as a teenager he sold peanuts at baseball games in Washington. It was while out and about during game days that a young Duke Ellington began becoming drawn to the music coming from pool halls that surrounded the ball diamond. In those days, pool halls, brothels and speakeasies were places where musicians of colour could play publicly and earn a living. It was in those Washington area pool halls that Ellington first heard piano players such as Eubie Blake. While Blake (you can read a previous post about Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle here) and Ellington didn’t formally meet here, the impression Blake’s playing left on the teenage Ellington was immediate and profound. Eubie Blake played Ragtime and some early Jazz. The energy and complexity of the music fascinated Ellington. He also thought that Blake and the other piano players he saw had an air of coolness about them. It was the thought of possessing their level of swagger and musical prowess that caused Duke Ellington to refocus his energies back toward his music. He attended his piano lessons with a renewed sense of purpose and dedication. Ellington learned how to read sheet music and to write his own. Before long, Duke Ellington met some other young men who played trumpets and trombones and clarinets and who, like Ellington, had dreams of being someone important. At first, Ellington played in any group that would have him. Eventually, he sought a higher degree of control over his future and formed his own band called The Duke’s Serenaders. This band played at all manner of events in and around the Washington, D.C., area. At all times, the band members dressed in suits and ties and cast an aura of elegance and maturity, to go along with their talent and energy. Because of how Duke Ellington presented himself in public, he and his band were hired to play for white audiences as often as they played for black audiences. Playing for integrated audiences was something that, at that time, usually only happened for performers of colour in minstrel-type shows that openly mocked the ambitions of people of colour. However, right from the very beginning, because of his upbringing, Duke Ellington never engaged in any public behaviour that would be described as deferential or self-deprecating. Ellington was the epitome of stylishness and professionalism at all times. He was a proud Black man, and he exuded that sense of pride at all times simply by being himself.
As Duke Ellington turned 20, his drummer, Sonny Greer, moved from Washington back to his home in New Jersey. Greer began playing in gigs in Harlem. He wrote to Ellington and invited him to move to New York City and join in the growing Arts scene there. Duke Ellington agreed to go. In time, Duke Ellington and the Duke Ellington Orchestra would become fixtures of the Harlem Renaissance, but in those early days, work was hard to come by in New York’s very competitive music marketplace. What helped establish Duke Ellington as a name to be reckoned with in New York was his willingness to do two separate but important and ultimately interconnected things. First of all, Duke Ellington hired himself and his (at the time) small band to play at personal events known as “rent parties”. In last week’s post about Eubie Blake and the musical Shuffle Along, I spoke about how the Harlem Renaissance was created, in part, by large numbers of people of colour who had moved north as part of an event called The Great Migration. With so many people of colour all requiring accommodation at the same time, the renting of apartments became somewhat of a sellers’ game. If people of colour wanted to live in one of the world’s biggest and fastest-growing cities, then they would have to pay extra for that privilege. Thus rent for people of colour tended to be inflated. This caused financial burdens for many families who were new to the city and were still seeking to establish themselves professionally. But this is also where the importance and significance of being part of a large community of people who shared common life experiences and knew that there was strength in looking out for each other came to the fore. Thus, the phenomenon known as rent parties started to become a common thing. A rent party was a party, as the name implies. However, it was a party whose goal was to generate revenue for the people hosting the event so that they could afford to pay their rent. When someone needed to throw a rent party, they would advertise through posters or personally-created invitations that stated when and where the party was to be held and what sort of entertainment would be available. There was always a cover charge for entry to the event. People often brought their own food and drink to help out the hosts. Finally, musicians such as Duke Ellington would show up and play for tips or, more often than not, for free. Imagine having someone like Duke Ellington or Cab Calloway or Fats Waller performing for free in your own living room!? Some of these parties could get quite raucous as pianists such as Ellington played Ragtime, Jazz and started introducing a new sound called Swing. The phrase “to cut a rug” (by dancing) originated from rent parties and the unintentional damage that happened from the dancing that took place at these events. The poet Langston Hughes, in an attempt to chronicle all aspects of the Harlem Renaissance, kept a shoebox filled with the posters and homemade invitations he received for the various rent parties he attended. When his personal and professional papers were eventually donated to Yale University, the shoebox filled with rent party invitations went along, too.
Because of the word of mouth recognition that Duke Ellington received from his performances at rent parties, his name was brought up as potentially being someone who might wish to lead the house band at a new nightclub that was opening up in Harlem called The Cotton Club. The band leader gig was first offered to King Oliver, who (as you may remember from a previous post that you can read here) was Louis Armstrong’s original mentor in New Orleans. Oliver declined to perform in The Cotton Club because it had a policy of excluding Black audiences. Duke Ellington accepted the job, in part because he had a comfort level in playing professionally for white audiences, but also because the performances at The Cotton Club were to be broadcast on national radio. Ellington correctly predicted that those national radio broadcasts would be one of the quickest ways to have Jazz music reach audiences on a national scale. So, Duke Ellington put together a full-fledged orchestra which became The Duke Ellington Orchestra. Because of those Cotton Club performances, Duke Ellington became a famous name in the emerging field of Big Band, Swing and Jazz music.
In addition to being a talented pianist, one of the things that endeared Ellington to those members of his orchestra was his compositional style. Many composers wrote music based upon their own personal inspirations and then expected those playing in the orchestra to adapt to the composer’s style. Duke Ellington did it differently. When Duke Ellington composed pieces of music, such as “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)”, “Mood Indigo”, “Sophisticated Lady”, “Take the A Train” and his first national hit, “Creole Love Call” featuring Adelaide Hall, he did so with the individual talents of his orchestra members in mind. Ellington always composed his songs based on the strengths of his players, and by doing so, he always placed them in positions where they would naturally have success and be able to showcase their talent. One specific example I could give would be how Duke Ellington was willing to give credit on many pieces of work (and a lot of professional trust) to his musical partner Billy Strayhorn who wrote many of the lyrics for Ellington’s most famous songs such as “Take the A Train”. Duke Ellington’s compositional/leadership style was so appreciated by those in his orchestra that many of his band members stayed with him all throughout their careers.
The song “Creole Love Call” is a significant song in Duke Ellington’s discography for several reasons. First of all, one of Ellington’s personal mandates was to increase the exposure of the roots of Black music to the entire nation. Thus, a song like “Creole Love Call” introduced America to the contribution of Creole culture to the genre of Jazz. Secondly, by employing Adelaide Hall as the singer of this song, he exposed her to a national audience as well. Hall, as you may know from last week’s post, was one of the original stars of the first all-Black musical ever called Shuffle Along. While her work in Shuffle Along made her a known talent in New York City, it was her work on “Creole Love Call” that introduced her to the nation at large. Thirdly, Adelaide Hall introduced an important musical element to “Creole Love Call” in the form of scat singing at the beginning and end of the song. While not the first performer to sing in the scat style, what Adelaide Hall did was use her voice to make sounds just like a regular musical instrument would. Thus, her vocal stylings complemented Ellington and his orchestra’s musical note making perfectly.
Over the course of his career, Duke Ellington and his Orchestra recorded over 1000 songs. He has won 14 Grammy Awards and has been inducted into every Hall of Fame for which he is eligible. He has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the U.S. and the Legion of Honour in France…the highest civilian awards in both countries. In 1999, a century after he was born, Duke Ellington was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for his contribution to Arts and Culture in America. Over a dozen of his songs have been selected by the Library of Congress for preservation due to the cultural significance they possess. Finally, as a measure of how respected Duke Ellington was by other musicians and how great an impact he had on the world of music, there are numerous songs that have been written about him. The first of two that stand out are “Sir Duke” by Stevie Wonder from his album Songs in the Key of Life. This song namechecks Ellington, along with several other notable Black musicians who were influential, as role models, in inspiring Stevie Wonder to follow the career path that he did. The second famous Duke Ellington-inspired song of note is one that many do not know is a tip of the hat in his direction at all. It is the great rock n’ roll song by the band Dire Straits called “Sultans of Swing”. For those unfamiliar with the lyrics of this song, “Sultans of Swing” is a song about the lead singer of Dire Straits, Mark Knopfler, and his friends, stumbling into a seedy bar in South London one day. It is a rainy day. The bar is almost empty. But in the corner is a Jazz band called The Sultans of Swing playing very quickly in “double four time” even though they have virtually no audience to speak of. The song that the band within the song is playing is “Creole Love Call” by Duke Ellington.
“Then a crowd of young boys they’re foolin’ around in the corner
Drunk and dressed in their best brown baggies and their platform soles
They don’t give a damn about any trumpet playin’ band
It ain’t what they call rock n’ roll.
And the Sultans
Yeah the Sultans, they play “Creole”,
“Creole”.
Both “Sir Duke” and “The Sultans of Swing” are great songs about a great composer, band leader and proud Black man, Duke Ellington. They are respectful nods that honour a man’s legacy as a difference maker in the lives of so many musicians who followed in his wake. In the history of Jazz as a musical genre, it is the foundational contributions of men such as Scott Joplin, King Oliver, Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle who made it possible for Jazz to become what it has over time. But it was men such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington who first brought Jazz and all of its iterations to the masses and made the genre enduringly popular. As we shall see in the weeks to come, the Golden Age of Jazz gave the world the likes of “Satchmo” and “The Duke”, but it also gave us so many more worthy people whose contributions are integral to the story of Jazz. It is with much humility and respect that I prepare to tell their stories as well. For now, I hope that you have enjoyed this brief look at the life of legendary composer, pianist and band leader Duke Ellington. If you have any stories about Ellington that you wish to share, favourite memories or songs that you wish to talk about, feel free to do so in the comments below. For now, I thank you for reading my words and look forward to seeing you for the next installment of The Story of Jazz for Beginners Like Me. Bye for now.
The link to the official website for Duke Ellington can be found here. ***For those who wish to learn more about Duke Ellington, his website is a treasure trove of information, photos, song clips and much more. Highly recommended.
The link to the website selling Duke Ellington’s biography, Music is my Mistress, can be found here. ***Support independent book stores if at all possible.
The link to a recording of the original version of “Creole Love Call” by Duke Ellington and the Duke Ellington Orchestra ft. Adelaide Hall can be found here. ***Note Hall’s use of her voice as a musical instrument. How incredible that a recording almost 100 years old has been preserved and is of such high quality.
The link to the official website for The Cotton Club can be found here.
The link to an article about the history of rent parties and their role in the Harlem Renaissance can be found here.
The link to the video for the song “Sir Duke” by Stevie Wonder can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.
The link to the video for the song “The Sultans of Swing” by Dire Straits can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.
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