A Portrait Of Duke Ellington By Tracy Frech Essay -- essays research p

A Portrait of Duke Ellington By Tracy FrechDuke Ellington is considered to be i of the greatest figures in the history ofAmerican music. Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was born in Washington D.C. onApril 29, 1899. His parents were James Edward and Daisy Kennedy Ellington. Theyraised Duke as an only child, until his sister, Ruth, was born when Duke wassixteen age old. Duke, even as a teenager, had a great talent for music. Inthe offset of his musical life, Duke began to take a promising interest in anew type of music that would later be called jazz. Choosing to storey his careeron a new idea may non have been smart, but Duke did take this chance and in turnbecame one of the near famous musicians in America.Dukes first job was at a government office. He was a clerk who receivedthe minimum employ and was barely getting by. He would arrange dance bands forweddings and parties for extra money. His sire taught him how to play thepiano. Some eons he put this knowledge to use and vie at a few of thedance parties and weddings. After Dukes first job, he became more interestedin painting and the arts. For a few years he painted public posters. Dukethen decided to put unitedly his deliver band.At this point in his life things started to change for the let on for Duke,but not for long. In those days, this new music was just beginning to develop andwould later be given the name of jazz. In that while it was considered to be lowand vulgar because it was music that grew directly out of the fatal culture. Inthose early years, segregation was at one of its all era worst points inhistory. I think that is why Duke Ellington was one of the mostimportant individuals to the growth and development of jazz. During Dukes longcareer, the new music soft spread out of bars and saloons, to dance and nightclubs and then lastly onto the concert stage. In time, jazz became auniversally recognized pee of art and has been said that it is the only realform that has ori ginated from the American soul. By the 1960s Duke traveled theglobe so some times that he became cognise as the unofficial ambassador to theUnited States. Dukes band had played in Russia, Japan, Latin America, the FarEast, the Middle East, and Africa. Duke, himself, was an elegant man. When thewhite people looked follow through on the black man and his music, Duke managed to brin... ...6 that boomed with popularity as the demandfor big bands playing this new swing music was in intense demand. Later on Dukehired a lyrical writer named Billy Strayhorn that led a premature destruction in 1967.But when Strayhorn was with the band he wrote many compositions that often wentinto the bands book of music. Then in 1942 Duke hired one of the scoop tenorsaxophoneophonists ever and let him play the first tenor sax solo ever arranged byDuke Ellington.In 1951 Saxophonist grayback Hodges, trombonist Lawrence Brown,and Sonny Greer left the band together and formed their own band but then in1 955 Sonny Greer returned to the band and stayed with Duke until his death in1970. And then by the 1950s the Ellington band was carrying on almost alone. By1972 the times and styles of the world no longer fit the old time style of Dukes band. The band was not known like it utilize to be and that could be the point intime I ideate you could say that the band broke up. Duke Ellingtons careerspanned the whole history of the sustain of the music called jazz. And nowhere inthat glorious history is there a man who had more love for music, more respectfor his art, than the man they called the Duke.