60 Fun Facts About Duke Ellington

What was Duke Ellington's real first name?

His full name was Edward Kennedy Ellington; the Kennedy came from his mother Daisy's maiden name.

In which city was Duke Ellington born and raised?

He moved to New York in the mid-1920s and became part of the Harlem Renaissance.

Which instrument did Duke Ellington play?

Both his parents were pianists too: his mother played parlour songs and his father preferred operatic arias.

How did Ellington get the nickname "Duke"?

Ellington credited his friend Edgar McEntee, who felt he needed a title to be eligible for his constant companionship.

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

He recalled President Theodore Roosevelt stopping on his horse to watch the boys play, and his first job was selling peanuts at Washington Senators games.

What was Ellington's first job?

He later worked as a soda jerk, a sign painter and a messenger for the U.S. Navy and State departments.

What was Ellington's first composition, written in 1914 while he worked at the Poodle Dog Café?

He composed it by ear before he could read or write music, and played it as a one-step, two-step, waltz, tango and fox trot so listeners never knew it was the same piece.

Ellington turned down a scholarship in 1916 to study which subject at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn?

He was studying commercial art at Armstrong Manual Training School and dropped out three months before graduating.

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

When a customer ordered a sign for a dance or party, he would ask whether they had booked music yet.

What was Ellington's first band, formed in late 1917, called?

His telephone directory advertising proclaimed them the "Colored Syncopators"; his first date at True Reformer's Hall earned him 75 cents.

The group Ellington took over in early 1924, after banjoist Elmer Snowden left, was known by what name?

It had started as Elmer Snowden and his Black Sox Orchestra during a four-year engagement at the Hollywood Club at 49th and Broadway.

In October 1926 Ellington signed with which agent-publisher, who took a 45 percent stake in him?

Mills regularly took a co-composer credit and arranged sessions on nearly every label of the day.

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

The booking had first been offered to King Oliver, who turned it down; Ellington had to expand from six to eleven players to audition.

What gave the orchestra national exposure during its late-1920s Harlem residency?

The club's revues mixed comedy, dance numbers, vaudeville, burlesque, music and illicit alcohol.

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

Miley composed most of "Creole Love Call" and "Black and Tan Fantasy" but left because of alcoholism and died in 1932 aged 29.

Whose 1927 'Creole Love Call' with the Ellington orchestra was their first hit?

Hall sang wordless vocals; Ellington had earlier written songs for the revue Chocolate Kiddies in which she starred.

Under what pseudonym were Ellington's OKeh records usually issued?

The Brunswick sides were usually issued as The Jungle Band; the other two names were also used.

What was Ellington's first film, a 1929 RKO short in which he played "Duke", titled?

The next year he appeared with the orchestra in the Amos 'n' Andy film Check and Double Check.

Which composer said the three greatest composers who ever lived were Bach, Delius and Duke Ellington?

Grainger added that unfortunately Bach was dead and Delius very ill, but Ellington was with them that day.

Which Ellington vocalist sang on the 1932 recording of 'It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)'?

She stayed 11 years, the longest of any Ellington vocalist, leaving in 1942 for health reasons.

In which city did Ellington compose 'It Don't Mean a Thing' during intermissions at the Lincoln Tavern in 1931?

It contains one of the earliest uses of the word 'swing' in popular music, and Ellington said the title was the credo of the dying trumpeter Bubber Miley.

Barney Bigard learned the 'Mood Indigo' theme from his teacher in which city?

Bigard's teacher Lorenzo Tio called it a 'Mexican Blues'; the tune was originally titled 'Dreamy Blues' for a 1930 radio broadcast.

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

Muted trumpet, muted trombone and clarinet blended into a sound that became one of his trademarks.

At which theatre did the Duke Ellington Orchestra make its British debut on June 12, 1933?

They were one of 13 acts on the bill and limited to eight short numbers, but Ellington got an ovation just for walking on stage.

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

The film won the Academy Award for Best Musical Short Subject.

How did the Ellington band avoid segregated facilities on its 1934 tour of the American South?

The railcars provided accommodation, dining and storage for equipment.

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

Tizol was a valve trombonist; Charles Mingus was fired from the band in 1953 after four days following a fight with him.

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

Nicknamed 'Sweet Pea', he became Ellington's writing and arranging companion for nearly 30 years and often stood in for him at the piano.

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

The title came from subway directions Ellington wrote out so Strayhorn could find his house in Harlem.

Which organisation's 1940 ruling forced the band to adopt a Strayhorn tune as its signature?

Ellington's own ASCAP-registered music could not be broadcast during the dispute; Strayhorn was not yet a member.

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?

Terminal illness forced him out by late 1941; his two years with Ben Webster in the band are often called its creative peak.

Ben Webster, who joined in 1939, was Ellington's first regular player of which instrument?

His arrival increased the sax section to five for the first time; he sat next to Johnny Hodges, whom he credited with showing him how to play his horn.

Ellington's first extended work, Black, Brown and Beige, premiered on January 23, 1943 at which venue?

It told the story of African Americans and began an annual series of Ellington concerts there over the next four years, though critics were lukewarm.

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

The 1958 Columbia album reworked only the 'Black' movement of the original three-part suite.

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

John Garfield and Mickey Rooney invested, and Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles offered to direct; it ran 122 performances at the Mayan Theater.

Which December 1950 LP was the bandleader's first, with extended 'concert arrangements' of 1930s classics?

It included new versions of 'Mood Indigo', 'Sophisticated Lady' and '(In My) Solitude' plus the tone poem 'The Tattooed Bride'.

Ellington's career revival is dated to his appearance at which event on July 7, 1956?

The performance made international headlines and led to one of only five Time magazine covers ever given to a jazz musician.

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

He had joined in December 1950 after stints with Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie and stayed with Ellington for the rest of his life.

Roughly how much of the original Ellington at Newport LP was actually recorded at the concert?

The band re-recorded several numbers the next day with faked crowd noise added; the real concert was not properly released until 1999.

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

He also wrote a score for Timon of Athens at Canada's Stratford Festival in 1963, and adapted Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker and Grieg's Peer Gynt.

Which 1959 Otto Preminger courtroom drama had a landmark score by Ellington and Strayhorn, with Ellington on screen?

The score won three Grammys and is called the first significant Hollywood film music by African Americans made up of non-diegetic music.

Which 1961 Newman-Poitier jazz film earned Duke Ellington his only Academy Award nomination?

The nomination came two years after the Anatomy of a Murder score.

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

Recorded in one day in September 1962 when Ellington was 63; Mingus nearly walked out mid-session.

What happened when Ellington was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1965?

Aged 66, he joked that fate did not want him to be famous too young; a special Pulitzer came posthumously in 1999.

Which works from 1965, called by Ellington 'the most important thing I've done', created a jazz Christian liturgy?

There were three, in 1965, 1968 and 1973; the Steinway on which they were composed is in the Smithsonian.

Only one track on Ellington's Far East Suite was inspired by a truly Far Eastern country. Which one?

'Ad Lib on Nippon' came from a 1964 Japan tour; the rest drew on 1963 concerts from Damascus and Kabul to Colombo and Baghdad.

Which singer's 1957 Duke Ellington Song Book, made with Ellington's orchestra, won a Grammy at the first ever ceremony?

It is the only entry in her Song Book series in which the composer also performed.

Ellington recorded his only album with which singer in 1967?

Titled Francis A. & Edward K., it came a few years after Ellington signed briefly to Sinatra's Reprise label.

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

It was the year of his 70th birthday; France gave him the Legion of Honour in 1973.

Ellington's son, who ran the orchestra for 20 years after Duke's death, was named what?

Mercer Kennedy Ellington was born in 1919 to Ellington's high-school sweetheart Edna Thompson.

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

He died of complications from lung cancer and pneumonia at 75 and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

In 2009 Ellington became the first African American shown alone on a circulating US coin. Which coin?

He is shown seated at a piano with the inscription 'Justice for All', the District's motto.

Which Stevie Wonder song from Songs in the Key of Life (1976) is a tribute to Ellington?

Miles Davis, Charles Mingus and Judy Collins also recorded tributes within months of Ellington's death.

What was the title of Ellington's 1973 autobiography?

Gunther Schuller later wrote that music 'was indeed his mistress; it was his total life'.

How many Grammy Awards did Ellington earn between 1959 and 2000?

Three of them were posthumous, from a total of 25 nominations.

Which phrase did Ellington embrace to describe his music rather than calling it jazz?

He preferred to see his work as part of the broader field of American music.

What was the title of Ellington's unfinished only opera, about a Black beautician in the 1930s?

He worked on it with Maurice Peress in 1972–74; his final completed work was Three Black Kings, dedicated in part to Martin Luther King Jr.

Where is Duke Ellington buried?

More than 12,000 people attended his funeral at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in May 1974.

In 1937 Ellington played what is considered the first jazz performance in a concert venue at which university?

He mistakenly drove to USC first, then apologised for his lateness by playing Royce Hall for more than four hours; a statue now stands outside Schoenberg Hall.