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Duke Ellington , was an American jazz composer, pianist, and bandleader.

Duke Ellington had, by the time of the many centennial celebrations centered on him in 1999, gained legendary status, a household name, an American institution and, to many, the most important name in jazz. The last credit is a bit tricky, due mainly to Ellington's reluctance to refer to his work as anything more specific than "music". The word "jazz", it would seem, was too narrow for Ellington, a man whose greatest compliment to others was always "beyond category". Indeed, Ellington himself has proved to be eternally enigmatic, slipping through the easy classifications of biographers, his compositions pulling similar stunts on musicians. When people talk about Ellington, it is always difficult to introduce him with a classification, for while he wore many hats, and wore them with , he himself could never settle on just one.

Through the ranks of Duke Ellington's Orchestra passed some of the biggest names in jazz, including Johnny Hodges, Cootie Williams, Bubber Miley, Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton, Barney Bigard, Ben Webster, Harry Carney, Sonny Greer, Otto Hardwick, Clark Terry, Jimmy Blanton, Ray Nance, Paul Gonsalves, and Wellman Braud. Many musicians stayed with him for decades. And while all of them were remarkable in their own right, and they all would have probably made it into the annals of jazz history no matter who they played for, it was Ellington's genius as a composer, pianist, bandleader, celebrity personality, and, most importantly, arranger, that made them the most incredible orchestral unit in the history of jazz. His ability to write and arrange for personalities, rather than instuments, made every solo and every section of every arrangement breathe with character. And because, for half a century, Ellington and the various incarnations of his band practically lived in recording studios, we are blessed with an enormous output of 78s, LPs, and V-Discs upon which music scholars have gorged.

He was one of the best known African-American celebrities, recording for most of the American record companies active during his lifetime and he featured in several motion pictures. Ellington and his Orchestra was touring the whole of the United States and Europe regularly before World War II, and from the fifties, much of the rest of the globe as well.

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James Edward Ellington, Duke's father, was born a slave in Lincolnton, North Carolina on April 15, 1879 and moved to Washington, D.C. in 1886 with his family. Ellington was born in Washington, D.C., to J.E. and Daisy Kennedy Ellington. J.E. made blueprints for the United States Navy; he also worked as a White House butler for additional income. Daisy and J.E. were both piano players, and at an early age Ellington began taking piano lessons from Mrs. Clinkscales. In his autobiography Ellington claims he missed more lessons than he went to, feeling that the piano was not his talent. Over time this would change. Ellington snuck into Frank Holiday's Poolroom at fourteen and began to gain a greater respect for music. After hearing a mentor play the piano his love for the instrument was ignited and he began to take playing the piano seriously. He began performing professionally at the age of seventeen. Instead of going to an academic-oriented high-school, he attended Armstrong Manual Training School to study commercial art. Three months before he was to graduate he left school to pursue his interest in the piano.

began his artistic career as a sign painter in Washington, D.C., but by 1923 he had formed a small dance band known as The Washingtonians (which included drummer Sonny Greer) and moved to New York City. Shortly thereafter the group became the house band of the Club Kentucky (often referred to as the "Kentucky Club"), an engagement which set the stage for the biggest oppurtunity in Elllington's life. In 1927, King Oliver turned down a job as the house band for Harlem's famed Cotton Club, and the offer fell into Ellington's lap. With a weekly radio broadcast and famous clientele pouring in nightly to see them, Ellington's popularity skyrocketed.

Ellington's band had grown to a large orchestra and the ranks had been filled by men, many of whom would later become famous in their own right. Trumpeter Bubber Miley was the first major soloist, an early experimenter in jazz trumpet growling. Miley is credited with morphing the band's . An alcoholic, Miley had to leave the band before they gained wider notoriety, and died in 1930 at the age of twenty-eight. Johnny Hodges joined the orchestra in 1928 and stayed until his death in 1970, except for two brief sabbaticals. Hodges would become the band's undisputed superstar soloist, the king of romantic alto saxophone ballads with his swooning, creamy remaining influential for years. Barney Bigard, formerly a member of King Oliver's band, was a master of New Orleans jazz clarinet and would stay with the band for twelve years. Harry Carney was one of the original innovators of the baritone saxophone, winning each Downbeat magazine poll until the arrival of Gerry Mulligan. Carney, who also pioneered circular breathing, was the longest lasting member of the orchestra, joining in 1927 and remaining with the group until his death in 1974, just several months after Ellington's. Lawrence Brown brought a buttery, elegant trombone that conflicted with that of Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton, who was the originator of many unique trombone stylings.

The band reached a creative peak in the early 1940s, when he wrote for an orchestra of distinctive voices and displayed tremendous creativity. Some of these musicians created a sensation in their own right. The short-lived Jimmy Blanton transformed the use of the double bass in jazz, allowing it to function as a solo rather than rhythm instrument alone. Ben Webster too, the Orchestras first regular tenor saxophonist, created a rivalry with Johnny Hodges as the Orchestras foremosr voice in the sax section. Ray Nance joined too, replacing Cootie Williams who had "defected", contemporary wags claimed, to Benny Goodman. Nance, though added violin to the instrumental colours Ellington had at his disposal. A recording of Nance's first concert date, at Fargo, North Dakota, in November, 1940, is probably the most effective display of the band at the peak of its powers during this period.

Three minute masterpieces flowed from the minds of Ellington, Billy Strayhorn (from 1939), his son Mercer Ellington and members of the Orchestra. From this time date "Cottontail", "Mainstem", "Harlem Airshaft", "Streets of New York", and dozens of others.

Ellington's long-term aim though became to extend the jazz form from the three-minute limit of the 78 rpm record side, of which he was an acknowledged master. He had composed and recorded as early as 1931, but it was not until the 1940s that this became a regular feature of Ellington's work. In this he was helped by Strayhorn, who had enjoyed a more thorough training in the forms associated with classical music than Ellington himself. The first of these, (1943), was dedicated to telling the story of African Americans, the place of slavery and the church in their history. Unfortunately, starting a regular pattern, Ellington's longer works were not well received;

In 1951 Ellington suffered a major loss of personnel, with Sonny Greer, Lawrence Brown and most significantly Johnny Hodges leaving to pursue other avenues.

Ellington's appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 7 1956 was to return him to wider prominence. The feature for saxophonist Paul Gonsalves, "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" with Gonsalves's six-minute saxophone solo, had been in the band's book for a while, but on this occasion created a near riot. The revived attention should not have surprised anyone, Hodges had returned to the fold the previous year, and Ellington's collaboration with Strayhorn had been renewed around the same time under terms which the younger man could accept. the following year (dedicated to Queen Elizabeth II) were products of the renewed impetus which the Newport appearance had helped to create.

In the early 1960s Ellington was between recording contracts, which allowed him to record with a variety of new artists. In 1962 he participated in a session which produced the (United Artists) album with Charles Mingus and Max Roach and recorded with John Coltrane for Impulse, who also recorded Ellington and his Orchestra with Coleman Hawkins. Musicians who had previously worked with Ellington returned to the Orchestra as members: Lawrence Brown in 1960, and Cootie Williams two years later.

Ellington was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1965, but was turned down. His reaction: "Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be famous too young". In 1966, he performed his first "Sacred Concert", an attempt at fusing Christian liturgy with jazz, which was followed by two others. This caused enormous controversy in what was already a tumultuous time in the United States. Many saw the Sacred Music suites as an attempt to reinforce commercial support for organized religion, though the Duke simply said it was "the most important thing I've done", perhaps with a touch of hyperbole.

Though his later work is overshadowed by his music of the early 1940s for some critics such as (controversially) James Lincoln Collier, Ellington continued to make vital and innovative recordings, including (1971)) until the end of his life. Increasingly this period of music is being reassessed as people realise how creative Ellington was right to the end of his life. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 and the Legion of Honor by France in 1973, the highest civilian honors of each country.

Duke Ellington died on May 24, 1974 and was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery, The Bronx, New York City.

, and included film shorts of the Orchestra during the 1930s and early 1940s. In the late 1950s his work in films took the shape of scoring for soundtracks, notably

A large memorial to Duke Ellington created by sculptor Robert Graham was dedicated in 1997 in New York's Central Park near Fifth Avenue and 110th Street, an intersection named Duke Ellington Circle. In his birthplace of Washington, D.C., there stands a school dedicated to his honor and memory: the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. The school educates talented students who are considering careers in the arts by providing intensive arts instruction and strong academic programs that will prepare students for post-secondary education andor professional careers.

The Ellington Orchestra itself continued intermittently as a "ghost band", led by Mercer Ellington (1919–1996) after his father's death.

Duke Ellington Collection, 1927-1988 - Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.1981 audio interview with Don George about Duke Ellington. Interview by Don Swaim of CBS Radio - RealAudio