The Duke of Jazz

For a score of years, while "kings" of jazz and swing have succeeded each other with Balkan rapidity, a "Duke" has exhibited most of the real majesty from beside the throne. So last week the U.S. music world helped the Duke celebrate his 20th year as a band leader. The American Federation of Musicians officially blessed a National Ellington Week in honor of famed Edward Kennedy ("Duke") Ellington, whose flamboyant black band has played superb jazz longer than any other orchestra in the history of U.S. popular music.

It was well deserved. Down-Beat's poll had just rated Duke's band first in popularity, with Benny Goodman's and Harry James's trailing. Duke and his boys celebrated by giving a concert for Russian War Relief in Manhattan's hallowed Carnegie Hall.

It was a spectacular sellout, is expected to net at least $5,000. Dressed in grey coats, each with a jet black carnation in his buttonhole, Ellington's 15 musicians played many such Ellington favorites as the Black and Tan Fantasy, Mood Indigo, Rockin' in Rhythm. Duke affably prowled before his men in his sweeping tails, conducting, adding neat phrases on the piano, introducing his numbers with graceful speeches. His music, as usual, was practically all by himself (with heavy contributions in orchestration and improvising from the boys). It was incandescent, original jazz, sometimes ebullient, sometimes languid, the product of one of the few authentically creative minds in contemporary music.

To climax his concert Duke trotted out a brand-new composition called Black, Brown and Beige, the polishing of which had kept the band up half the previous night. It turned out to be one of the longest (45 minutes) and most ambitious pieces of tone painting ever attempted in jazz. Flavored with everything from Stravinskian dissonance to three-four time, it often seemed too ambitious. But there were stages of the emulsion that might appeal to any musician.

Aside from the magnificent sartorial spectacle which the Ellington band provides on any stage, Duke in 20 years has made practically no concessions to public taste. He was born in Washington, D.C. in 1899. His father, a retired Navy Yard blueprint worker, was comparatively well off. The Ellington family owned its own home and even an auto with a bulb horn. Ellington was given piano lessons at the age of six but went through high school expecting to be a painter.

Today Duke lives in a small Harlem apartment where, on a small upright piano, he composes between orchestra dates. His wife, from whom he has been separated for many years, lives in Washington. A 23-year-old son, Mercer (also something of a composer), is now in the Army. Duke's personal popularity among his bandsmen is attested by a turnover incredibly slow for any enterprise. Duke reads the Bible, attends church regularly.

"I always say," he declares, "that there are more churches in Harlem than cabarets. The Negro is not merely a singing and dancing wizard, but a loyal American in spite of his social position. I want to tell America how the Negro feels about it."

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