Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington (1899-1974), composer and bandleader. A largely self-taughtianist, he was influenced by jazz and ragtime performers. While working as aign painter he began to play professionally and in 1918 started his own bandn his native Washington, D. C. In 1923 he moved to New York City and playingiano at the Kentucky Club, began gathering the musicians who formed the coref his famous orchestra and made his first recordings. With no formalraining in composition, he nonetheless employed daring and innovativeusical devices in his works; blending lush melodies with unorthodox andften dissonant harmonies and rhythmic structures based on what was thenalled "jungle' effects, he wrote and arranged songs tailored to his own bandnd soloists. Radio broadcasts during an engagement at New York City'sashionable Cotton Club from 1927 to 1932 brought him and his group nationalecognition; and his recordings - particularly Saddest Tale, Echoes of Harlem,lack and Tan Fantasy, and Mood Indigo - spread their fame to Europe.;Davidradbury continues his list of critically acclaimed biographies of the the