Duke Ellington Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Duke Ellington - Essay drillTo write everything in just two pages would be impossible, so lets deal with the most important ones. To become with wed have to deal with Duke Ellingtons origins. James Edward Ellington (Dukes father) who made blueprints for the navy and worked both as a carpenter and a White House butler, and Daisy (Kennedy) Ellington (Dukes mother) were strongly religious people belonging to the middle class black families in the USA. Both of them could play the piano well, and exposed their son to music at an early age (with young woman Clinkscales- his piano teacher, as he nicknamed her), hoping he would learn the piano and start playing the church electric organ later. However, E. K. Duke Ellington showed as more provoke in drawing and painting at the time than in music. He created a poster and won a prize from the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) for it. He became interested in music in his teenage years (in high school) aft er all, because he realized girls want piano players, so he continued his piano lessons. At the age of fifteen he worked in a soda-shop after school. This experience led to his first composition, a jazz song titled as Soda Fountain Rag. That was the time when he got his nickname Duke. Why and how he got it can unaccompanied be speculated because there be so many stories about it (Duke Ellington Biography, http//www.musicguide/biographies/160800462/Duke-Ellington.html ). Duke dropped out of high school and started playing in jazz bands by night and painted signs as a freelancer during the day to make a living. Good looking, he married relatively young on July 2, 1918 to Edna Thompson. His only son from this marriage, Mercer, took leadership all over the band after his death.What should be said about Dukes personality and appearances It could be seen the best from his personal quotes wish Im a telephone freak, the greatest invention since peanut brittle or when asked about how he got the dinero on his face he replied I have four stories about it, and it depends on which you like the best. one is a taxicab accident another is that I slipped and fell on a broken bottle then there is a jealous woman, and last is Old Heidelberg, where they used to stand walk to toe with a saber in each hand, and slash away. The first man to step back incapacitated the contest, no matter how many times hes sliced the other. Take your pick. Also, in regards to his personality, we must add his let words and views on races and categories I dont believe in categories of any kind, and when you speak of problems between blacks and whites in the USA, you are referring to categories again (Duke Ellington - Biography, http//www.imdb.com/name/nm0254153/bio ).Duke Ellington spent most part of his life on the road. Speaking of successful touring and performing, one mustnt neglect and forget the fact about Dukes restless and ambitious character. Although Duke grew up surrounded by peo ple from the middle class, he became a man of dignity and tended to reach for higher goals in his life. He visited unused York in 1923 for the first time, but before settling in New York he played unitedly with Sonny Greer (a drummer from New Jersey), Otto Hardwicke and Arthur Whetsol in Wisconsin and Atlantic City. He assembled several