Duke Ellington Biography

He was awarded honorary degrees from institutions such as Howard University, Oberlin College, the University of Arkansas, Pepperdine University and the University of Southern California. His maternal grandmother sang African-American spirituals to him. Still grew up in Little Rock, and started violin lessons at the age of 15. He taught himself to play the clarinet, saxophone, oboe, double bass, cello and viola, and showed a great interest in music.

At some point between 1825 at the birth of Britain Duke, in north Carolina and Henry’s birth in 1829 his father, Dabney, decided to move his growing family to Tennessee. after this move, Bennett volunteered to go down to Texas and help the Texans’ gain their independence from Mexico. He joined up with a group of Kentucky volunteers on their way down to Texas. This decision to volunteer is what led to him become a patriarch in the history of the Duke family in Texas.

John Duke was one of America’s foremost composers of art song. He was born in Cumberland, Maryland, in the late 1800’s. Due to his musically and literarily inclined parents, Duke had learned to read music from his mother who was a singer. He did great things with music, beginning piano lessons at the age of 11, and entering the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland, at the age of sixteen, where he studied piano with a pupil of some very famous composers.

Beethoven's talents were discovered at an early age, and he was sent to Vienna to study under different teachers including Mozart and Hayden. There, Beethoven quickly adopted a reputation of a great piano player, a child prodigy. He gave his first public performance at the age of eight and published his first

In W.C. Handy’s early life he had been a composer, musician and music publisher. William Christopher Handy was born to Elizabeth Brewer and Charles Barnard Handy. At a very young age Handy had shown his love of music, and was supported in the pursuit of his dream only by his maternal grandmother, everyone else

Duke spent his first sabbatical from Smith, studying in Europe. He was also a member of the Yaddo Summer Music Colony in Saratoga Springs, New York, from 1936 to 1937, and he served as program chair for the Yaddo concert series of contemporary American chamber music in 1937. In 1941 Duke's "Carnival Overture" was given its premiere by the Boston Pops Orchestra. His 1944 sabbatical was spent in New York City, where he was the chair of the National Association of American Composers and Conductors and arranged a series of four concerts of contemporary songs

Duke Ellington was an American composer, and a bandleader who had composed thousands of scores over his 50 year career.Duke Ellington was born on April 29, 1899, in Washington, D.C. He was a major figure in the history of jazz music, Ellington career spanned more than half of the time of his composed thousands of songs for the stage, screen, and songbook. Ellington made one of the most distinctive ensemble sounds in the western music and had continued to play what he called American music.

Duke Ellington, much like Louis Armstrong, stands as a significant figure in jazz history, contributing greatly to the genre's development and leaving an enduring mark on the music industry. Duke Ellington, who was born in Washington, DC in 1899, has had an immense impact on jazz and American music in general. Ellington's creative approach to composition and orchestration was one of his most significant contributions to jazz. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Ellington didn't entirely depend on existing scores. Instead, he allowed his band members to freely interpret and develop his works.

Our music industry would not be what it is today without one of America’s greatest music legends, Duke Ellington. He made major breakthroughs at a time when the odds were against him. The pioneer who scouted these new regions of musical space more than any other jazz musician of the time was Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (1899-1974). (Tirro 1993)

in Kansas City and became one of the most famous jazz musicians of all time. He led us

He is known as one of the Founding Fathers of the Harlem Renaissance, because of his brilliant poetry and art.

“Like The Duke’’, In a sentimental Mood’’ ‘’Take the A train’’ where songs that made me like jazz, that made me sit down and listen this genre of music, there are a lot of great jazz composers in history of music but Duke Ellington was one of the best till this day we still hear his music play. His type of jazz was really relax very smoothing extremely unorthodox.

Duke Ellington's pre-eminence in jazz is not only because of the very high aesthetic standard of his output and not simply due to his remarkable abilities as a pianist, composer and bandleader, but also to the fact that he has extended the boundaries of jazz more than any other musician, without abandoning the true essence of the music. Perhaps no other American musician left such a massive and challenging legacy in composition and performance.

music while others had a taste for the old, more familiar styles. Ned Williams, who became Ellington’s publicist, commented on Ellington’s first performance at the Cotton

during this time he quickly became a part of the Harlem Renaissance. Four years later,