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 unriva direct of the greatest figures in the muniment ofAmerican medicinal drug. Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was born in upper-case letter 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 was cardinal years disused. Duke, even as a teenager, had a great gift for music. Inthe beginning of his musical life, Duke began to take a promising wager in anew type of music that would later be c alled jazz. Choosing to base his careeron a new idea may not have been smart, but Duke did take this chance and in bitoeuvrebecame oneness of the most famous musicians in America.Dukes premiere job was at a government office. He was a clerk who receivedthe borderline wage and was barely getting by. He would arrange dance packs forweddings and parties for pointless money. His mother taught h im how to play thepiano. Sometimes he specify this knowledge to practise and vie at a hardly a(prenominal) 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. Duke whence decided to put together his own band.At this point in his life things started to switch over for the better for Duke,but not for long. In those days, this new music was fairish beginning to develop andwould later be given the name of jazz. In that time it was considered to be lowand vulgar because it was music that grew directly let out of the Black culture. Inthose early years, segregation was at one of its all time 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 slowly spread out of bars and saloons, to dance and nightclubs and then eventually onto the concert stage. In time, jazz became auniversally recognize form of art and has been said that it is the only realform that has originated from the American soul. By the 1960s Duke traveled theglobe so many times that he became known 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 pile looked down on the black man and his music, Duke managed to brin... ...6 that boomed with popularity as the demandfor uncollectible bands playing this new swing music was in intense demand. posterior on Dukehired a lyrical writer named Billy Strayhorn that led a premature death 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 best highsaxophonists ever and let him play the first tenor sax solo ever arranged byDuke Ellington.In 1951 saxist Johnny Hodges, trombonist Lawrence Brown ,and Sonny Greer left the band together and form their own band but then in1955 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 near alone. By1972 the times and styles of the world no longer fit the old time style of Dukes band. The band was not known analogous it used to be and that could be the point intime I suppose you could say that the band broke up. Duke Ellingtons careerspanned the whole history of the birth of the music called jazz. And nowhere inthat glorious history is at that place a man who had more love for music, more respectfor his art, than the man they called the Duke.