Duke Ellington

Also known as Edward Kennedy Ellington, Duke Elington, Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington, Mood Ellington

American jazz pianist and composer (1899–1974)

AI overview

Duke Ellington was an American jazz pianist and composer who lived from 1899 to 1974 and became one of the most influential figures in jazz history. His innovative compositions and distinctive musical style shaped the development of jazz as an art form and left a lasting impact on American music and culture.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

In the Vinony graph

Duke Ellington is indexed among the 1,657 entries in Vinony's Pulitzer Prize collection. It also appears in Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Within Vinony's link graph, Duke Ellington is referenced by 5,413 other articles, and connects out to Grammy Awards, Library of Congress and Legion of Honour.

It sits within the topics 1899 births, 1974 deaths and 20th-century American conductors (music).

Its subject is documented across 75 Wikipedia language editions.

Person · Open Library

Works: 40

Top works

The Great Music of Duke Ellington
The Duke Ellington Centennial Edition
Vocal Score
Come Sunday
Music Is My Mistress

via Open Library + Wikidata

Film & TV

Acting · Washington, District of Columbia, USA

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and leader of a jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem.

Known for

Steve e il Duca — Self (archival)2024
Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat — Self (archive footage)2024
I Can't Give You Anything But Love: The Jimmy McHugh Story — Self (archive footage)2024
Charlie Parker: Bird Songs — Self (archive footage)2022
Duke Ellington in Isfahan — Self (archive footage)2021
The Apollo — Self (archive footage)2019
The Green Book: Guide to Freedom — Self - Musician (archive footage)2019
Duke Ellington and his Orchestra - Live — Himself2019
The Jazz Ambassadors — Self (archive footage)2018
Duke Ellington & Sarah Vaughan Live At The Berlin Philharmonic Hall 1989 — Self2014

via TMDB

Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Person
Gender: Male
Origin: United States
Active from: 1899
Active to: 1974

big bandduke boxjazznewportswing

Discography

Member of

Official site Discogs Stream

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners: 1,587,371
Total plays: 24,936,861

Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

In vitro selection of RNA molecules that bind specific ligands
· 1990 · cited 8,717x
The zebrafish reference genome sequence and its relationship to the human genome
· 2013 · cited 4,559x
Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance 1990–2021: a systematic analysis with forecasts to 2050
· 2024 · cited 2,782x
Status and distribution of mangrove forests of the world using earth observation satellite data
· 2010 · cited 2,369x
Aptamers as therapeutics
· 2010 · cited 2,030x

via Crossref · CC0

Quotes

“It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing).”
“I think of music sometimes in terms of color [...] and [in a furnace] I like to see the flames licking yellow in the dark and then pulsing down to a kind of red glow.”
“[Sights enabling musical inspiration] The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician [...] Things like the old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night, or something someone said long ago. I remember I once wrote a sixty-four-bar piece about a memory of when I was a little boy in bed and heard a man whistling on the street outside, his footsteps echoing away. Things like these may be more important to a musician than technique.”
“As Bach says [...] if you ain't got a left hand, you ain't worth a hoot in hell.”
“[Expressing a liking for trains] Folks can't rush you until you get off.”
“You can't write music right [...] until you know how the man that'll play it plays poker.”

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Wikidata facts

Official website: www.dukeellington.com
Image: Duke Ellington at the Hurricane Club 1943.jpg

Show 13 more facts

Commons category: Duke Ellington
date of death: 1974-05-24
date of birth: 1899-04-29
nickname: Dumpy
birth name: Edward Kennedy Ellington
Commons gallery: Duke Ellington
name in native language: Duke Ellington
start of work period: 1922-00-00
pseudonym: Duke Ellington
P8168: Communes of the Haut-Rhin department
end of work period: 1974-00-00
P12674: Stephan Genz
Commons Creator page: Duke Ellington

Sources (15)

via Wikidata · CC0

~40 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1924 through the rest of his life. Music critic Ralph J. Gleason called him "America's most important composer".

Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem. A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington wrote or collaborated on more than one thousand compositions; his extensive body of work is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, and many of his pieces have become standards. He also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, such as Juan Tizol's "Caravan", which brought a Spanish tinge to big band jazz.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Duke Ellington” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.