Duke Ellington: The Icon

Welcome to Week Five of Jazz Appreciation. This week we talk about one of the greatest composers in American music, Duke Ellington. We'll begin our discussion by talking about some of the differences between Count Basie's band, that you heard last week, and Ellington's band. As you probably recall from last week, Basie's band was blues and riff-based, had the instruments grouped in sections often, and it featured Basie's light piano plinks. While Duke Ellington's band certainly played the blues, overall they had a wider variety of material than Basie's band. Ellington's arrangements often used unusual instrument colors and sounds. Many times, Ellington's band was more orchestral sounding than Basie's. Let's talk about Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington for awhile. Composer, pianist, bandleader, lived from 1899 to 1974. Led the Duke Ellington Band for 51 years. One of America's greatest composers, and the accolades-- there are so many. He left us with over 1,000 compositions. So much highly regarded music that entire college courses are devoted just to his music alone. 12 Grammy Awards, nine while he was alive, nine recordings in the Grammy Hall of Fame, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Pulitzer Prize, and his picture on the 22-cent US stamp. In addition to those compositional skills, he had remarkable skills as an arranger. He used unusual combinations of instruments, and even his way of writing for the usual combinations of instruments-- when instruments were playing in sections that you hear in a big band-- it was unique the way he assigned the notes to those players, and the way he voiced the chords. He also developed a technique of writing across the sections-- we'll talk about that later on-- all in the effort to give the music unusual colors, and give the band a singular identity. Ellington also wrote music to feature specific members of his band, and he made members of his band sound better than they could on their own. So, many members of the Ellington band became synonymous with the music. And so, when you heard the Ellington band on a record, you would expect to hear these individual players and their sounds. There's a great story about this. Alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges, who was with Ellington for most of his life, started with Ellington in 1928, and stayed with Ellington until 1951, and became kind of a jazz star with Ellington. Hodges decided to go out on his own and form his own small group, and be a leader. In four years of that time, it didn't go so well, and so in 1955, Hodges called Ellington and said, "Can I please come back to the band?" Ellington let him back in the band, and Hodges stayed there from 1955 until 1970. So Hodges sounded better really with Ellington than he could on his own.

Even though Ellington was a great pianist, many said that the orchestra was his instrument-- the big band was his instrument-- because of his great arranging ability. Much of Ellington's output fits into four types of compositions. While not all of his music fits neatly into one of these categories, this will be a helpful way for us to understand much of his output. We're listening to examples of each category, and I'll give detailed explanations of each category very soon. The four categories of compositions are--- first, Jungle Music; second, Standards; third, Mood Music; and finally, Extended Form. So let's start with Jungle Music. This was initially written for shows at the Cotton Club. Ellington's band was at the Cotton Club in New York from 1927 to 1931. This was a band that featured lots of dancing and floor shows, and the Ellington Band often played an accompaniment role when they were working there. Jungle Music features growling brass and plunger mutes-- we talked about those with Basie last week-- low drum sounds, a lot of tom toms, low saxophones, including the baritone saxophone that was played by Harry Carney most of his life in Ellington's band. So these sounds were great for the kind of dancing and sort of the floor shows of the Cotton Club. Ellington used these devices in his music even after the band left the Cotton Club. He always had a trumpet player and a trombone player in his band that could play the growling style. We talked about putting "sauce" on notes, or growling, in some of the Basie videos. And Ellington always had a couple players that had this kind of specialized skill, and they always had great nicknames. So there's a trumpet player named "Bubber" Miley. And you just say that name, "Bubber," you think about those growling sort of plunger sounds. "Cootie" Williams was another trumpet player. "Cootie" was the nickname. And then his famous trombone player, "Tricky Sam" Nanton, who could really use these devices to his advantage. So let's listen to an example of Jungle Music that also reinforces the idea of Ellington as a "picture-painter" with music. So many times Ellington attempted to create a specific image, so he would actually be going after a particular programmatic, person, or scene. Other times, the picture painted would be a bit more abstract, and would just seem like a color. The first song we're going to talk about is an overt picture. It's called "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo," and it was recorded in 1927 early in Ellington's career. So this is a picture of a waddling, kind of heavy set man that Ellington knew in East Saint Louis. And when he walked, he would kind of lurch back and forth. And so, Ellington tries to depict this slow-

moving, waddling man with low chords in the saxophone, kind of lurching back and forth. So imagine that as you listen to this short excerpt: [MUSIC PLAYING: EAST ST. LOUIS TOODLE-OO (r. 1927) :00-:10] You kind of hear those chords moving back and forth. OK, what also puts this song firmly in Jungle Music is the plunger muted growling trumpet that comes right after this. This is by "Bubber" Miley, a short excerpt of his growing and his plunger work. [MUSIC PLAYING: EAST ST. LOUIS TOODLE-OO (r. 1927) :10-:20] Our next song we're going to look at is one of the most highly regarded Jungle Music compositions. It's called "Ko-Ko," and it was recorded in 1940. So Ellington's band had already left the Cotton Club, but was still playing jungle-type music on occasion. This song, "Ko-Ko," is the first selection on your Cerego Deep Listening Course 2, so you're going to get quite familiar with it. It features Harry Carney on the baritone saxophone. Harry Carney was another of those players that spent his life with Ellington, and that Ellington helped put in a great framework. Forty-five years, Harry Carney was with Ellington. And when Ellington died, Carney said, "This is worst day of my life. Without Duke, I have nothing to live for." And then Carney died four months later. So he had a big, wobbly baritone saxophone sound, Harry Carney. And in our first excerpt of "Ko-Ko," you can hear that right from the very first note. Here it is: [MUSIC PLAYING: KO-KO (r. 1940) :00-:12] So there you can hear Harry Carney's baritone saxophone sound. You'll hear that all throughout Duke Ellington's recorded music. A little later in the song, we have lots of great plunger work in the trumpets and the trombones. And here's a very high trombone solo with a mute and a plunger and some growling. It's so high, you might think it's a trumpet, but it's really a trombone, and it's our friend "Tricky Sam" Nanton. [MUSIC PLAYING: KO-KO (r. 1940) :43-1:01] Ellington's soloists had such skills and such individual sounds that you grew to expect to hear them when you listened to Ellington's recordings, and this was a little different than Basie's band. So in summary of this video: Duke Ellington was an American icon that received wide recognition, and gave us thousands of songs. Ellington featured unusual colors and a wide variety of repertoire in his big band that he led for 51 years. Ellington wrote music to feature individual members of his band, many who stayed with him for decades. Four categories of Ellington music include Jungle Music, Standards,

Mood Music, and Extended Form. Jungle Music featured growling brass sounds and low instruments. In our next video, we'll talk more about Ellington's picture painting, and discuss his Standards category.