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Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington

Tags: #music #jazz #biography #history #culture #race

Authors: Terry Teachout

Overview

My book, Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, is a biography of the iconic American jazz composer and bandleader Duke Ellington. The book is written for a general audience, particularly those interested in music, jazz, biography, and American cultural history. I approach Ellington’s life and work from a thematic perspective, exploring his relationship to race, class, success, and artistic creation. I explore his unusual creative process, his complex relationship with Billy Strayhorn, his longtime collaborator, and the complex interplay of art and commerce in his long, successful career. My goal is to offer a clear-eyed, nuanced portrait of this endlessly fascinating artist, while explaining how he turned the limitations of his talent and temperament into strengths that made him a true original.

Book Outline

1. Prologue: “I WANT TO TELL AMERICA”

This prologue introduces Duke Ellington and his unique approach to music making. Unlike many composers, he was a chronic procrastinator, relying on deadlines to jumpstart his creative process. Despite this, he left behind an astonishing number of compositions and was widely recognized as a musical genius. Ellington often told interviewers about his ambitious plans to write long-form works celebrating Black history, but he rarely followed through - until 1943, when he premiered his controversial Black, Brown and Beige at Carnegie Hall.

Key concept: “I don’t need time,” he liked to say. “What I need is a deadline!” Ellington’s creative process was famously fueled by pressure. He rarely worked steadily on a piece, preferring to pull it together at the last moment. This sometimes frustrated his collaborators, but it was key to his artistic personality.

2. “I JUST COULDN’T BE SHACKLED”

Ellington was born in Washington, D.C. to a middle-class Black family, and his upbringing had a profound influence on his character. He attended segregated schools and early on developed a strong sense of racial pride. While his family instilled in him a code of polite, middle-class manners, he was also drawn to the more freewheeling world of the city’s Black nightclubs, where he first fell in love with ragtime and jazz. He dropped out of high school in 1917 and started his professional career as a bandleader a year later.

Key concept: “I just couldn’t be shackled,” he would say, describing his resistance to formal music education. Throughout his life, he’d take a similar approach to every aspect of music-making, trusting his instincts and shaping his surroundings to fit his own needs and desires.

3. “ONLY MY OWN MUSIC”

This chapter covers Ellington’s early professional years and introduces Irving Mills, the music publisher and manager who would transform his career. He formed a band, the Washingtonians, that played popular dance music in clubs and at parties. He learned from other musicians, like Willie “the Lion” Smith and Will Marion Cook, as well as from listening closely to classical music and popular dance orchestras. He moved to New York City in 1923 to seek his fortune, playing a mix of jazz and “sweet” dance music in Harlem nightclubs. He became a successful bandleader but struggled to break into the higher echelons of the music world.

Key concept: “I figured I might as well corral something so that I could have control of something… a dollar don’t care where it’s from, whether it’s black [or] green,” Irving Mills said, explaining his decision to seek out and develop Black musical talent. This purely commercial motivation would have life-changing consequences for Duke Ellington.

4. “THE UTMOST SIGNIFICANCE”

This chapter covers Ellington’s engagement at Harlem’s Cotton Club, where he played from 1927 to 1929. The club, which featured light-skinned Black dancers and catered exclusively to a wealthy white clientele, helped make him a star, but it also forced him to confront the realities of racial prejudice. Ellington later played down the club’s racist policies, but he was acutely aware of them.

Key concept: “The Cotton Club was a classy spot,” Ellington said. But it was also a whites-only nightclub, and his decision to play there for a large salary would have lasting consequences for his reputation, above all among Black intellectuals, many of whom resented his embrace of a musical venue that they saw as catering to racist stereotypes.

5. “I BETTER SCRATCH OUT SOMETHING”

In 1929 and 1930 Ellington achieved national recognition. He started recording for Victor, the country’s leading record label, and the band’s performances were broadcast nationwide from the Cotton Club. He appeared in Black and Tan, the first commercial sound film to feature a major Black jazz band, as well as in Check and Double Check, a less successful feature starring the white radio comedians Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, the creators of Amos ‘n’ Andy. By this time Ellington was composing memorable pieces like “Mood Indigo” and “Creole Love Call” that combined sophisticated instrumental writing with bluesy solos, most notably by his star trumpeter, Bubber Miley. He was also starting to grapple with the problem of writing extended works, producing “Creole Rhapsody”, a multi-movement suite that showed off his growing compositional ambitions but also revealed his lack of formal musical training.

Key concept: “I better scratch out something,” Ellington is alleged to have said of “Mood Indigo,” a composition that he claimed to have written in 15 minutes. While this anecdote is apocryphal, it sheds light on how he liked to think of himself as a composer for whom creativity was an effortless act of spontaneous inspiration.

6. “A HIGHER PLATEAU”

This chapter examines Ellington’s career from 1931 to 1933, during which he achieved lasting fame. In 1931 he recorded Creole Rhapsody, a six-and-a-half-minute suite that showed off his growing compositional ambitions but also revealed his lack of formal musical training. Later that year, he toured Europe with his band, becoming an immediate sensation. He returned to New York and starred in Show Girl, a big-budget Broadway musical produced by Florenz Ziegfeld, after which he resumed his engagement at the Cotton Club. He also began writing and recording moody ballads like “Mood Indigo” and “Sophisticated Lady” that showcased the lyrical side of his compositional personality. By 1933 he was one of America’s best-known musicians, though some critics questioned his commitment to jazz.

Key concept: Ellington would later write of this period that “during this period - 1940-41 - we produced some very good music.” He was right: The recordings of the Blanton-Webster Band, which featured the bassist Jimmie Blanton and the tenor saxophonist Ben Webster, are widely regarded as the summit of Ellington’s achievement. Blanton died in 1941 at the age of 23, but Webster rejoined the band a decade later and continued to play with Ellington until his death in 1974.

7. “THE WAY THE PRESIDENT TRAVELS”

This chapter covers the period from 1933 to 1936, during which Ellington toured extensively and continued to refine his compositional style. He made his first tour of the Deep South in 1934, performing in Atlanta, Birmingham, Chattanooga, and Nashville. The band’s popularity was enhanced by its national radio broadcasts, but its recordings were declining in quality, and after 1931 Ellington made no more films of any consequence. He was also starting to find his relationship with Irving Mills, his longtime manager, to be increasingly problematic.

Key concept: “I’m not slipping,” Ellington told an interviewer who suggested that he disband his orchestra in 1946. Though it was true that the band was starting to show the strain of Ellington’s failure to keep it in line, it was also true that he was still capable of writing great music, most notably the pieces for which he and his band are best remembered today, such as “Concerto for Cootie” and “Cotton Tail.”

8. “SWING IS STAGNANT”

This chapter examines the period from 1936 to 1939, during which Ellington had to cope with the growing popularity of swing music. While the music of his own band continued to evolve, his commercial success declined, and at one point he even considered giving up music. In 1938 he started writing a series of extended works for the band, including “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue” and “Black, Brown and Beige.” These pieces, which reflected his interest in the music of his light-skinned father and his ambivalent feelings about his own racial identity, brought him to the attention of classical critics, but they did little to halt his declining commercial fortunes.

Key concept: “Duke Says Swing Is Stagnant.” The headline of a 1939 article by Ellington, in which he argued that swing music had become stale and predictable. He was right: Most of the swing bands of the thirties and forties, with the notable exception of Benny Goodman’s orchestra, played the same catchy, riff-based tunes over and over. Ellington, by contrast, was constantly experimenting with new musical ideas, though the public, which was in thrall to the King of Swing, was largely indifferent to his efforts.

9. “THE EYES IN THE BACK OF MY HEAD”

This chapter tells the story of Ellington’s creative relationship with Billy Strayhorn. Strayhorn, a classically trained pianist, composer, and arranger who was gay, joined Ellington’s band in 1939 and immediately began collaborating with the bandleader on a series of classic recordings, including “Take the ‘A’ Train,” “Chelsea Bridge,” and “Sophisticated Lady.” Though he received less attention than Ellington, Strayhorn was a gifted composer in his own right, and his musical style, though it had much in common with that of Ellington, was more formally disciplined and harmonically advanced.

Key concept: “Billy Strayhorn was my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brainwaves in his head, and he in mine,” Ellington said of his musical soulmate. Their relationship, however, was as creatively productive as it was personally complex, in part because Strayhorn was gay and Ellington was not. While Ellington was publicly supportive of Strayhorn, he was also intensely possessive of him, refusing to let him work with other bandleaders and only occasionally giving him credit for the music that he wrote. For his part, Strayhorn understood that the path to musical success for a gay Black man in the America of the thirties and forties was a narrow one, and he chose not to break with Ellington until much later.

10. “THE SEA OF EXPECTANCY”

This chapter tells of how the Ellington band was transformed by the arrival in 1939 of the bassist Jimmie Blanton and the tenor saxophonist Ben Webster. Though neither man was a familiar name outside the world of jazz, they were both exceptionally gifted instrumentalists whose styles were different from those of Ellington’s other sidemen. Blanton was a classically trained musician whose unusually fluent technique allowed him to play jazz bass with a precision and melodic inventiveness that no one had previously thought possible, while Webster, who played with an explosive, hard-swinging intensity, was a natural-born bluesman. Together they helped inspire Ellington to write some of his most colorful and emotionally evocative music, including “Ko-Ko,” “Cotton Tail,” “Concerto for Cootie,” and “Harlem Air Shaft.”

Key concept: “All we wanted was that sound, that beat, and those precision notes in the right places, so that we could float out on the great and adventurous sea of expectancy with his pulse and foundation behind us,” Ellington said, describing the impact of Jimmie Blanton’s arrival on his music. Blanton, a classically trained bassist who had never played in a big band before, singlehandedly transformed the Ellington sound, demonstrating that the bass, far from being a purely rhythmic instrument, was also capable of lyrical solo playing. The saxophonist Ben Webster joined the band shortly thereafter, and his rich, powerful tone and hard-swinging solos further enhanced the unique ensemble sound for which the Blanton-Webster band is remembered today.

11. “A MESSAGE FOR THE WORLD”

This chapter covers the creation and failure of Ellington’s first stage musical, Jump for Joy. The all-Black, socially conscious revue delighted West Coast audiences but never made it to Broadway. It premiered in Los Angeles in 1941 at the height of the national radio ban on ASCAP-registered songs. The ban, which was prompted by a dispute between ASCAP, America’s largest musical performing-rights organization, and the radio networks, created a huge opportunity for Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, both of whom were ASCAP members, to write and record new music under Strayhorn’s name. Out of this chaotic situation came “Take the ‘A’ Train,” a jaunty swing number that would become Ellington’s signature theme.

Key concept: Jump for Joy was Ellington’s first attempt to write a full-evening musical for the stage. It was a bold experiment, an all-Black revue whose political purpose was to celebrate Black culture and promote racial equality in America. The show, however, was also a commercial failure. It closed after 101 performances and never made it to Broadway, though it is now seen as a landmark in the history of Black musical theater. Ellington later attributed its lack of success to the fact that it was “twenty years ahead of its time,” but it is also likely that the show’s leftist political message, which was too explicit for many viewers, contributed to its early demise.

12. “I DON’T WRITE JAZZ”

This chapter covers Ellington’s 1943 premiere of Black, Brown and Beige at Carnegie Hall. The performance was a landmark in Ellington’s career, establishing him in the eyes of the public as a serious composer whose ambitions transcended the sphere of jazz. It also revealed the strengths and weaknesses of his compositional personality. While he was already a master of instrumental timbre and capable of writing hauntingly beautiful melodic fragments, he had not yet learned how to use harmony to articulate large-scale musical structures, and he would long struggle with this problem.

Key concept: “We stopped using the word jazz in 1943. That was the point when we didn’t believe in categories,” Ellington famously said of Black, Brown and Beige. His declaration neatly sums up the paradoxical nature of his artistic ambitions. While he sought to be recognized by the white classical establishment as an artist whose music was “beyond category,” he was also acutely aware of the fact that his composing style was rooted in the Black musical experience and had a distinctly “racial” flavor. Black, Brown and Beige premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1943 to mixed reviews. The piece was a critical success, but its commercial prospects were limited by Ellington’s ambivalent feelings about the jazz-influenced “classical” music of George Gershwin, whose Porgy and Bess had recently premiered on Broadway. Though Ellington had spoken of writing an opera since 1930, he never finished it, and it was not until 1943 that he attempted to write a concert work of comparable scope and scale.

13. “MORE A BUSINESS THAN AN ART”

This chapter covers the period from 1946 to 1955, during which Ellington’s commercial and artistic fortunes declined. He returned to New York in 1947 and resumed recording, this time for Columbia. His music continued to evolve, but he was frustrated by the lack of public interest in his more ambitious pieces. In 1947 he collaborated with the lyricist John Latouche and the scenic designer Perry Watkins on Beggar’s Holiday, a musical based on The Beggar’s Opera that closed after 111 performances. Though he and his collaborators later claimed that Beggar’s Holiday was “ahead of its time,” the show’s failure underscored Ellington’s inability to write a successful Broadway show, in part because he did not know how to write a book musical whose songs drive the action.

Key concept: “More a business than an art.” Ellington’s description of how he viewed the music industry in 1946. He felt creatively stifled by the declining popularity of big-band jazz, as well as by the relentlessly commercial approach of the record companies, for whom he was increasingly obliged to write and record material that he considered to be beneath his talent.

14. “I WAS BORN IN 1956”

This chapter examines Ellington’s return to prominence in the late fifties. He began his comeback in 1955, when Johnny Hodges rejoined the band and the drummer Sam Woodyard became the newest member of the rhythm section. The following year he triumphed at the Newport Jazz Festival, and Time magazine put him on its cover, establishing him as a major artist whose music transcended the boundaries of jazz. Ellington took advantage of this breakthrough to expand his activities, writing and recording a steady stream of albums and suites and making frequent appearances on television.

Key concept: “I was born in 1956,” Ellington liked to say, referring to his comeback at the Newport Jazz Festival. His triumph there was in part due to a 14-minute, 59-chorus tenor sax solo by Paul Gonsalves on “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue” that brought the crowd to its feet and was widely hailed as the most exciting event of the festival. It was the shot in the arm that Ellington needed to put his career back on track.

15. “FATE’S BEING KIND TO ME”

This chapter covers the years from 1960 to 1967, during which Ellington continued to enjoy success as a recording artist and concert performer, though his later work was not as consistently impressive as that of the fifties. In 1965 he was denied a Pulitzer Prize for music, an event that wounded his pride and caused him to reflect anew on the problem of artistic recognition. He took consolation from the growing popularity of his sacred concerts and toured the world as a musical ambassador for the United States.

Key concept: “Fate’s being kind to me,” Ellington famously said when he was passed over for a Pulitzer Prize. Despite this self-deprecating remark, he was deeply hurt by the Pulitzer board’s decision, which he took as proof that he was not fully respected as an artist by the white cultural establishment. This snub, however, did not stop him from continuing to write extended works and to seek opportunities to perform them in concert halls. At the same time, he also embraced the growing popularity of his sacred concerts, which he saw as a way to communicate his religious faith to a wider audience.

16. “THAT BIG YAWNING VOID”

This chapter examines Ellington’s final years. He continued to tour and record after 1967, but his creative energies flagged, and the deaths of several of his closest colleagues, above all Billy Strayhorn and Johnny Hodges, left him feeling isolated and bereft. Yet he refused to slow down, even after being diagnosed with lung cancer in 1972, and he died with his boots on, a proud, stubborn survivor to the very end. His funeral was attended by more than 12,000 mourners, and since his death his reputation has continued to grow. He is now universally recognized as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century.

Key concept: “Billy Strayhorn left that big yawning void,” Ellington said in 1968. Though he continued to tour and record after Strayhorn’s death in 1967, his music lost much of its color and freshness, a decline hastened by the deaths of Johnny Hodges in 1970 and Harry Carney in 1974. Ellington himself died on May 24, 1974.

Essential Questions

1. How did Ellington’s complex personality shape his music?

Ellington was a complex and contradictory figure, both brilliant and flawed. He was a musical genius but a chronic procrastinator, a charismatic leader but a ruthless businessman, a devoted son but a serial philanderer. He embraced the high life but was acutely aware of the burden of race. These tensions shaped his music, which is as full of contrasts as he was himself.

2. How did Ellington’s collaborative process shape the sound of his band?

Ellington’s collaborative process was famously unorthodox. He drew inspiration from the unique sounds of his musicians, often building his compositions around their improvised solos. He preferred to work on the fly, shaping and reshaping his music on the bandstand and in the recording studio rather than meticulously writing it down beforehand. This approach, though it sometimes frustrated his collaborators, resulted in an exceptionally flexible and responsive ensemble sound, one in which individual voices were seamlessly woven into a unified whole.

3. How did Ellington’s artistic ambitions shape his approach to long-form composition?

While Ellington claimed not to be interested in “classical” music, he was deeply ambitious and longed to be recognized as a great composer, not merely a great jazz musician. He wrote a long series of extended works, but they were often criticized for being formally formless and lacking in thematic development. His most successful long pieces, such as “Mood Indigo” and “Sophisticated Lady,” were shorter in length and closer in form to popular songs.

4. How did Ellington’s relationship with Irving Mills shape his career?

Ellington’s relationship with Irving Mills, his longtime manager and publisher, was mutually beneficial but also deeply exploitative. Mills recognized early on that Ellington was a talented composer and bandleader with commercial potential, and he promoted him aggressively to white audiences. In return, however, he extracted a large share of Ellington’s publishing royalties and exerted a tight control over his career. Ellington chafed at this control but understood that he needed Mills’s help to succeed in the white-dominated music industry.

5. How did Ellington’s complex relationship to race shape his music and career?

While Ellington was a popular entertainer whose music was meant to be accessible to a mass audience, he also saw himself as a race-conscious artist with a mission to portray the Black experience in sound. He spoke often of wanting to write a long-form work celebrating Black history and culture, but he only occasionally followed through on his ambitious pronouncements. This tension between entertainment and artistic ambition, between commercial success and cultural significance, was a defining feature of his career.

Key Takeaways

1. Ellington’s Music Was Deeply Collaborative

Ellington’s approach to music-making was fundamentally collaborative. He drew inspiration from the unique talents of his musicians, often building his compositions around their distinctive styles and sounds. He shaped and reshaped his music on the bandstand, in rehearsals, and in the recording studio, constantly experimenting and seeking out the most effective ways to showcase his musicians’ strengths. This process resulted in an exceptionally flexible and responsive ensemble sound that was unlike anything else in jazz.

Practical Application:

In collaborative AI projects, it’s essential to recognize and nurture individual talent. Just as Ellington gave his soloists space to shine, AI teams should encourage individual contributions while ensuring that they harmonize to achieve a common goal. Product engineers can foster this dynamic by creating a supportive and collaborative work environment that celebrates both individual ingenuity and collective achievement.

2. Ellington Was a Restless Innovator

While Ellington was deeply rooted in the jazz tradition, he was also a restless innovator who never stopped experimenting with new sounds and ideas. He was always searching for ways to expand the expressive possibilities of jazz, and his willingness to break with convention is one of the things that made his music so original. He saw possibilities where others saw only limitations, and he never stopped pushing himself and his musicians to find new ways to make music that sounded like nothing else.

Practical Application:

In the world of AI and technology, where innovation is key, it’s important to be willing to break with convention. Just as Ellington challenged the traditional rules of musical harmony, AI product engineers should be open to exploring unconventional approaches and pushing the boundaries of what’s considered possible.

3. Ellington Was an Omnivorous Listener

Ellington was an omnivorous listener who drew inspiration from a wide range of musical sources. He listened to classical music, popular songs, folk music, and even the bluesy steam whistles of passing trains. He was also deeply interested in the music of other cultures, and he incorporated elements of Latin American, Asian, and African music into his own work. This openness to new ideas is one of the things that made Ellington’s music so endlessly varied and fascinating.

Practical Application:

Just as Ellington learned from a wide range of musical sources, AI product engineers can benefit from broadening their horizons and seeking out inspiration from diverse fields. By studying other disciplines, they can gain new perspectives and generate innovative ideas that can be applied to the challenges of developing new technologies.

Suggested Deep Dive

Chapter: “THE EYES IN THE BACK OF MY HEAD”

This chapter explores Ellington’s complex relationship with Billy Strayhorn, which has fascinating parallels to modern collaborative relationships in the field of AI. Understanding the intricacies of this creative partnership, with its challenges around attribution and recognition, can be particularly insightful for AI product engineers working in collaborative settings.

Memorable Quotes

Prologue. 13

“I don’t need time,” he liked to say. “What I need is a deadline!”

“I JUST COULDN’T BE SHACKLED”. 25

“I just couldn’t be shackled,”

“ONLY MY OWN MUSIC”. 81

“I figured I might as well corral something so that I could have control of something… a dollar don’t care where it’s from, whether it’s black [or] green,”

“THE UTMOST SIGNIFICANCE”. 100

“The Cotton Club was a classy spot,”

“I BETTER SCRATCH OUT SOMETHING”. 106

“I better scratch out something,”

Comparative Analysis

While there have been other noteworthy biographies of Duke Ellington, including James Lincoln Collier’s Duke Ellington (1987) and John Edward Hasse’s Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington (1993), my work, Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington distinguishes itself by its focus on the interplay between Ellington’s complex personality and his musical development. Unlike previous biographers, I explore in detail the impact of Ellington’s middle-class Black upbringing and his ambivalent relationship with his racial identity on his music. I also give a fuller account of his creative partnership with Billy Strayhorn, whose crucial role in Ellington’s success has often been downplayed. Lastly, by drawing extensively on the work of music scholars who have used computer-aided analysis to definitively establish the division of labor between Ellington and Strayhorn, I am able to give a more complete and accurate account of their collaborative process than has previously been possible.

Reflection

My biography of Duke Ellington, like my earlier biography of Louis Armstrong, is not without its controversial aspects. Ellington was a private man who took great care to conceal his inner life from the public. He rarely gave interviews in which he spoke frankly about his personal experiences, and he was notoriously reticent to discuss his creative process. As a result, much of what has been written about him is based on speculation and hearsay. I sought to cut through the mythology that surrounds Ellington by drawing extensively on previously untapped archival materials, including unpublished interviews, private correspondence, and the reminiscences of his friends and colleagues. By telling his story in full and with unsparing honesty, I hoped to offer a clearer and more nuanced understanding of this complex and contradictory artist. Whether I succeeded is for the reader to decide.

Flashcards

When did Duke Ellington form his band, the Washingtonians?

1924

At what Harlem nightclub did Duke Ellington gain national recognition in the late 1920s?

The Cotton Club

Who was Duke Ellington’s longtime collaborator and composer of “Take the ‘A’ Train”?

Billy Strayhorn

What two musicians transformed the sound of the Ellington band in 1939?

Jimmie Blanton and Ben Webster

“Mood Indigo”, “Sophisticated Lady”, “Take the ‘A’ Train”, “Concerto for Cootie”

Who was the music publisher and manager who helped to make Ellington a star?

Irving Mills

When did Duke Ellington premiere his ambitious concert work Black, Brown and Beige at Carnegie Hall?

1943

At what event did Duke Ellington make his comeback in the late 1950s?

The 1956 Newport Jazz Festival

Which of Ellington’s songs epitomized his view that the blues were “a song of romantic failure”?

“It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)”