59 Fun Facts About Duke Ellington

What was Duke Ellington's real first name?

Edward. He was Edward Kennedy Ellington, with a middle name from his mother Daisy's family that he later handed on to his only child.

In which city was Duke Ellington born and raised?

Washington, D.C. He built his first bands there before moving to New York in 1923, where a Harlem residency made his orchestra famous nationwide.

Which saxophonist shared a 1963 album with Duke Ellington that includes a version of 'In a Sentimental Mood'?

John Coltrane. Then at the leading edge of modern jazz, he said he was honoured to work with Duke, who had set standards he had not caught up with yet.

How did Duke Ellington get the nickname 'Duke'?

Boyhood friends found his manner aristocratic. By his own account, one of them decided that any constant companion of his ought to have a title.

As a boy, what was Duke Ellington more interested in than his music lessons?

Baseball. He recalled that President Theodore Roosevelt would sometimes ride by on his horse and stop to watch the boys play.

Duke Ellington wrote a suite for which figure, sent the recording and declined to release it in his lifetime?

Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen's Suite set natural wonders from his travels to music, among them the northern lights and a field of lightning bugs, and it went on sale only after his death.

What was Ellington's first composition, written around 1914?

Soda Fountain Rag. He was a teenager working behind the counter as a soda jerk, and the job gave his first tune its name.

Ellington turned down a scholarship to study which subject at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn?

Art. He had studied it through high school, but music had taken hold of him, and he began playing professionally at 17 instead.

What day job did Ellington use to drum up bookings for his early dance bands?

Sign painter. When a customer ordered a sign for a dance or party, he asked who was playing the music, and offered his own band if nobody was.

Which Tchaikovsky work did Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn rework as a 1960 jazz suite?

The Nutcracker. They renamed its dances as they went, so the Sugar Plum Fairy became 'Sugar Rum Cherry' and the march became the 'Peanut Brittle Brigade'.

Which bandleader's orchestra took over Ellington's Harlem residency in the early 1930s?

Cab Calloway. His band stepped in when Ellington's moved on, and in 1931 he recorded 'Minnie the Moocher', the song that made him the 'Hi-De-Ho' man.

In 1926 Ellington signed with which agent-publisher, who then took co-writing credit on many of his songs?

Irving Mills. He also demanded a share of the royalties from those songs, and in 1939 the two parted ways.

Ellington's orchestra became the house band at which Harlem venue in December 1927?

The Cotton Club. King Oliver was offered the job first and turned it down, so the opening fell to the younger Ellington.

What gave Duke Ellington's orchestra national exposure during its late-1920s Harlem residency?

Weekly radio broadcasts. They carried the band live from a Harlem nightspot that seated only white patrons into homes across the country.

Which trumpeter's growling style created the hot "Jungle Style" sound of Ellington's early band?

Bubber Miley. He made his horn growl through a plunger mute, and when drink cost him his chair in 1929, his replacement Cootie Williams learned the trick and kept the sound alive.

Which singer added the wordless vocal to Ellington's 1927 recording of 'Creole Love Call'?

Adelaide Hall. By her own account she was humming along in the wings when Ellington heard her, said it was just what he was looking for and had her record it days later.

A bronze memorial showing Duke Ellington at his piano stands at the Harlem corner of which New York park?

Central Park. The pianist Bobby Short began the campaign in 1979, and 18 years passed before the statue rose where Fifth Avenue meets 110th Street.

Which 1929 short film, Ellington's first, cast him as a bandleader named Duke?

Black and Tan. Fredi Washington plays a dancer who is dying, and the film ends with the band playing his 'Black and Tan Fantasy' at her bedside.

Which composer had Ellington's band illustrate his 1932 New York University lecture, likening Duke's music to Delius?

Percy Grainger. The Australian-born pianist was a close friend of Delius and heard the same harmonies in Ellington, whom he is said to have ranked with Bach and Delius as the greatest composers ever.

Which Ellington band vocalist sang on the original 1932 recording of 'It Don't Mean a Thing'?

Ivie Anderson. It was her first record, and she stayed eleven years, even singing in the Marx Brothers film A Day at the Races, until chronic asthma forced her off the road in 1942.

Barney Bigard, who brought Ellington the 'Mood Indigo' theme, grew up in which city?

New Orleans. By Bigard's own account his old teacher from there, Lorenzo Tio, later brought him the tune in New York, and he reworked it before handing it to Ellington.

What did Ellington do to the trumpet, trombone and clarinet in his 'Mood Indigo' arrangement?

He inverted their usual registers. The clarinet, normally the top voice, plays at the bottom of its range with the trombone high above it, and the blend became an Ellington trademark.

At which London venue did Ellington's orchestra make its British debut in 1933, as one act on a variety bill?

The Palladium. Its manager was reviving the theatre with big variety shows topped by American stars, so the band spent two weeks there as one turn among many.

The 1935 Ellington short film Symphony in Black introduced which singer to the screen?

Billie Holiday. She has a small part as a woman mistreated by her lover and sings 'Saddest Tale' in her one scene.

How did Ellington's band avoid segregated facilities when it toured the American South in 1934?

They travelled in private railcars. The band ate and slept aboard, at great expense, so nobody had to hunt for a hotel or restaurant willing to serve Black musicians.

Which member of Ellington's band wrote the 1937 hit "Caravan"?

Juan Tizol. By Ellington's account the Puerto Rican valve trombonist played him the opening bars and the band worked out the rest; a small group recorded it before the full orchestra did.

Billy Strayhorn was originally hired by Ellington in 1939 in what role?

Lyricist. He had applied for work writing words to Ellington's tunes, but his arranging and composing soon made him the bandleader's closest musical partner for nearly thirty years.

Which Strayhorn composition became the Ellington band's theme in 1941?

Take the 'A' Train. In the best-known telling, the title came from the subway directions Ellington gave Strayhorn for reaching his Harlem apartment.

Which organisation's dispute with radio kept Ellington's own tunes off the air, so a Strayhorn piece became the band's theme?

ASCAP. Ellington's own pieces were licensed through it and vanished from the airwaves, so Strayhorn, who was not yet a member, had to supply the band with a fresh book of tunes.

Which Strayhorn ballad, written while he was a student in Pittsburgh, caught Ellington's attention in December 1938?

It was originally titled 'Life Is Lonely'; Strayhorn was born in Dayton, Ohio and raised in Pittsburgh.

Which short-lived bassist, hired in St. Louis in 1939, made the double bass a solo jazz instrument?

Jimmy Blanton. Ellington offered him the job the night they met; tuberculosis forced him out two years later and killed him at 23, yet the records from that short stay are rated the band's finest.

Ben Webster was the Ellington orchestra's first featured soloist on which instrument?

Tenor saxophone. He sat beside Johnny Hodges, the band's alto star, and often credited him with showing him how to play his horn.

Ellington's suite Black, Brown and Beige had its premiere in January 1943 at which New York venue?

Carnegie Hall. He wrote it for his first concert there, to tell the history of Black Americans in music, and the night opened a series of Ellington concerts at the hall.

Which gospel singer sang 'Come Sunday' on Ellington's 1958 album Black, Brown and Beige?

Mahalia Jackson. The tune began in 1943 as a showcase for alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges; for this record it became a song for her, and she sings the 23rd Psalm as well.

Jump for Joy, Ellington's 1941 musical on themes of African-American identity, opened in which city?

Los Angeles. With Hollywood on the doorstep, John Garfield helped finance it and Orson Welles offered his services, yet the show never reached Broadway as Ellington had hoped.

Which tap dancer led the original Broadway cast of Sophisticated Ladies, the 1981 revue built from Ellington's songs?

Gregory Hines. The role brought him a Tony nomination in a show that ran almost two years; a few years earlier he had been fronting a rock band in Venice, California.

Ellington's career revival is dated to his appearance at which event in July 1956?

The Newport Jazz Festival. A marathon saxophone solo near midnight had the crowd in a frenzy while the organiser pleaded for the set to end, and six weeks later Ellington was on the cover of Time.

Which tenor saxophonist played the 27-chorus solo in "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" in 1956?

Paul Gonsalves. Ellington had announced only an interlude between the two pieces; Gonsalves stayed in the band until his death in 1974, days before Ellington's own.

Ellington's hit 1956 'live' festival album was in fact mostly recorded where?

In a studio soon afterwards. Ellington thought the band had sounded under-rehearsed, so only about 40 percent of the LP came from the concert, with applause dubbed over the rest.

Ellington's 1957 suite Such Sweet Thunder was based on the works of which writer?

William Shakespeare. The title is a line from A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the idea came while the band was playing in Stratford, Ontario, during the town's summer Shakespeare season.

Which 1959 Otto Preminger film had a score by Ellington and Strayhorn, with Ellington himself appearing on screen?

Anatomy of a Murder. Ellington appears as a roadhouse bandleader called Pie-Eye, in a film led by James Stewart, and the score won three Grammys.

Ellington's score for Paris Blues, his only Oscar nomination, lost to which 1961 film?

West Side Story. It took ten Oscars that night; in Paris Blues, Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier only mime their horns, with seasoned jazzmen playing the solos for them.

Ellington's 1963 trio album Money Jungle paired him with which bassist and drummer?

Charles Mingus and Max Roach. Both were a generation younger than Ellington, and the single day in the studio grew so tense that Mingus, by his own account, walked out partway through.

What happened when the 1965 Pulitzer jury recommended Ellington for a music citation?

None was awarded to anyone that year. The Pulitzer board rejected its own music jury's advice, and Ellington remarked that fate was being kind: it did not want him to be famous too young.

What did Duke Ellington call the most important thing he had ever done?

The Sacred Concerts. The first, at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral in 1965, brought his orchestra, a choir and a tap dancer into church, and two more followed in 1968 and 1973.

Which country inspired the only truly Far Eastern piece on Ellington's Far East Suite?

Japan. 'Ad Lib on Nippon' followed a 1964 tour there; most of the rest grew out of a 1963 State Department tour of the Middle East and South Asia.

Which choreographer created the 1970 ballet The River for American Ballet Theatre to a new Duke Ellington score?

Alvin Ailey. Famous for his own modern-dance company, he made this piece for a classical troupe, which first danced it in New York in June 1970.

Ellington recorded his only album with which singer in 1967?

Frank Sinatra. Ellington had briefly been signed to the singer's own Reprise label, and the two finished the album in Hollywood on Sinatra's 52nd birthday.

Which US president awarded Ellington the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969?

Richard Nixon. He presented it at the White House on Ellington's 70th birthday, at a party that included an all-star tribute concert of his music.

What was the name of Ellington's son, who took over the orchestra after Duke's death?

Mercer. A trumpeter who had worked as his father's business manager, he kept the orchestra working for two more decades, until his own death in 1996.

Who summed up Duke Ellington's 1974 funeral with the words 'A genius has passed'?

Ella Fitzgerald. 'It's a very sad day,' she said; the two had been recording partners since her 1957 Song Book of his music, the only one in that series on which the composer himself played.

Which European country gave Ellington its highest civilian honour in 1973?

France. Its ambassador presented the Legion of Honour in New York, and Ellington answered with a tune he made up on the spot and named after the ambassador's wife.

Which pop star's No. 1 hit 'Sir Duke' was written as a tribute to Duke Ellington?

Stevie Wonder. He wrote it after Ellington's death in 1974, saluting other jazz greats in the lyric as well, and it topped the US chart in 1977.

What was the title of Ellington's 1973 autobiography?

Music Is My Mistress. In it he admitted that as a boy he missed more piano lessons than he attended, sure that the instrument was not his talent.

Which rival bandleader brought his whole orchestra into the studio to record alongside Ellington's in 1961?

Count Basie. The album was subtitled The Count Meets the Duke, and on stereo copies Basie's band comes out of the left speaker and Ellington's out of the right.

Which phrase was Ellington's highest compliment for musicians he admired?

Beyond category. He found the word 'jazz' too narrow and preferred to call his own work American music, or simply music, so the phrase suited him as well as anyone he praised.

What was the title of Ellington's unfinished only opera, about a Black beautician?

Queenie Pie. He first had the idea in the 1930s, inspired by the hair-care millionaire Madam C. J. Walker, and he was still at work on it when he died some forty years later.

Where is Duke Ellington buried?

Woodlawn Cemetery, the Bronx. Its grounds became a resting place of jazz royalty: King Oliver was already there, and Miles Davis later joined them.

Which university says Ellington gave its students a free four-hour concert in 1937 after first driving to the wrong campus?

UCLA. By the university's account he drove to USC first, then made up for his lateness by playing Royce Hall for more than four hours; a statue of him at a piano now stands on campus.