Duke Ellington's Accomplishments

He was born on 1886 in Lenox, Massachusetts, the 2nd oldest of six siblings, and was a skilled violinist since he was a kid (The Black Past). When he got a promotion at his magazine job when he was 14, he got his first camera. He was one of the first people in his town to own a personal camera so it was up to him to photograph lower class African American life at the time. At least until he, his brother Walter, and his dad would move to the Big Apple where he would work as an elevator operator and a waiter. While there,

Alvin Ailey was a phenomenal choreographer, dancer, and activist whose work focused on the narrative of the African American during the Great Depression and the Civil Rights Movement. Informed and inspired by black church services, gospel music, and everything spiritual, the collaborations between him and Duke Ellington come as no surprise. Ellington’s career also focused on depicting “the character and mood and feeling of [his] people”, except he executed this artistry through musicianship in composing, conducting, songwriting, and bandleading. Together, they were both able to uplift and celebrate the Black American and their rich culture, during a time of trauma and the unforgivable horrors of slavery, meanwhile revolutionizing and

Aaron Copland was born November 14th 1900 in Brooklyn, New York. He is the youngest of five children to Sarah Mittenthal, his mother and Harris Copland, his father. He had two brothers, Ralph and Leon and two sisters Laurine and Josephine. As early as the age of nine, he began making up songs on the piano and two years later, his older sister Laurine began giving him piano lessons. In 1914, Copland began studying with his first professional piano teacher, Ludwig Wolfsohn in Brooklyn, New York. His first public performance as a pianist was in 1917, one year before his graduation from high school in Brooklyn. Upon it’s grand opening in 1921, Copland attended the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau, a music conservatory designed to

Duke Ellington was raised by his two talented musical parents in his middle-class neighborhood in Washington DC. Duke was seven when he started playing the piano and earned his nickname “Duke” for him being a gentlemen and his gentlemanly ways. At the age

Gordon was born in Waynesboro, Georgia into a religious and musical family that greatly influenced his career music. His father, Lucius Gordon, was a church organist at several churches in Burke County, as well as a classical pianist and teacher. Gordon took an interest in jazz in 1980 when he was thirteen, while listening to his father's collection of jazz music. The collection included a five-LP anthology produced by Sony-Columbia. In particular, he was drawn to musicians like Louis Armstrong and the Hot Fives and Hot Sevens. He began attending Sego Junior High School in Georgia, where his band director was trombonist Don Milford. Gordon graduated in 1985 from Butler High School in Augusta. While in high school, he performed in NYC as part

One of the biggest names in jazz, even 118 years after his birth. Edward “Duke” Ellington was born on April 29 1899 in Washington D.C. (PBS.org). He was an only child to his mother and father (PBS.org). His mother started teaching him piano at age 7 (Biography.com), and his gentlemanly way of dress and action earned him the nickname Duke from his friends (Biography.com).

     Where would music be had it not been for the men that stepped before him.

Duke Ellington, the legendary jazz pianist, said that a problem is a chance to do your best, and I agree with him. When people learn from their problems, it can help them in many ways. They can learn how to do things better in the future, they can learn more about themselves and what they like or dislike, and they can even be used to help someone who is having trouble with the same issue(s).

James Reese Europe was prominent in emerging black musical in theatre, he led the very first all black musicians orchestra to performance in Carnegie Hall. Whereas Paul Whiteman had organised "An Experiment in Modern Music" that intended to make a lady out of jazz at the time. Mass media or even their publicity team used the term, "King of Jazz," to arouse the crowds and evoke their concern about jazz music. Although it was such a big issue at that time, presence of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis made people forgot about them and what they had done in uprising jazz music. By reading this research paper, reader should awake their appreciations towards their contribution in jazz music industry.

Considered one of the best jazz writers ever, Duke Ellington enormously affected the well known music of the late twentieth century. Among his more than two thousand tunes. Conceived in Washington D.C. in 1899, Edward Kennedy Ellington, his mom managed his instruction of the piano, making him ready to perform professionally at age 17. He then began to create his own music. In 1923 he moved to New York, and the next year shaped his own band, the Washingtonians.By 1927, Ellington's band had found a little base of fans and secured an engagement at Harlem's celebrated Cotton Club. This ended up being a noteworthy defining moment in Ellington's profession, giving him access to bigger groups of onlookers through radio and recordings. In 1931 Ellington

Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was raised by Mary Albert his mother and not so much by William Armstrong his father. He had a hard childhood, his father was a factory worker who left right after he was born his mother who turned to prostitution most of the time for money would leave him behind with his grandmother. Louis Armstrong was forced to leave school in the 5th grade to start working. He worked for a Jewish family picking up trash and delivering coal. The Jewish family pushed Louis Armstrong to sing while he was young. In 1912 he got arrested on New Years Eve for shooting his step fathers gun in the air, he was arrested on the spot then sent to Colored Waif’s Home for Boys. While he was there he got musical lessons on the cornet and that’s when he fell in love with music. He was released from the home in 1914 and started pursuing his life of making music.

He was born on April 29th, 1899 in Washington, D.C., United Sates. Died May 24th, 1974. He was an American pianist, also was recognized as a greatest jazz composer and bandleader, composed thousands of scores, and created one of the most distinctive ensemble of sounds in all of western music. Ellington grew up in a middle class family in Washington. His family encouraged him to follow his interests in the fine arts. At the age of seven, Ellington started studying the piano. And followed his study through high school, after graduating he was awarded with a scholarship to the Pratt institute, Brooklyn, New York, but he did not accept it. At the age of 17 he started preforming professionally, the first place he performed was in New York City in 1923. (Duke Ellington page 1) While in New York City he led a sextet in Broadway night clubs, that soon became to be a ten-piece ensemble. The type that influence a lot of his was “jungle style”. Ellington soon later moved and extended residencies at the cotton club, enlarging his ensemble top fourteen-piece ensemble. One of Ellington’s highest career point was in the early 1940’s he had composed many master pieces such as, “cotton tail”, “Ko-Ko” and “Main Stem”. These songs had a very strange structure. Ellington didn’t want to just keep himself to jazz music so he’d branched off once and a while to write some of his other

Antonin Dvorak was born into a poor family, with a butcher and innkeeper for a father, and had eight other siblings by his side. He and his family grew up with music, his uncles played fiddle, one was even good at trumpet, and his father played the zither, a distant relative of the guitar, but none in the family knew that their own family would have a musical genius in their midst.

His grandmother was a skilled pianist, and his mother and uncle enjoyed listening to big band music. Also, his absent father was a pianist who played in several dance bands while stationed in Surrey. Therefore, he eventually found he was also an artist. At the age of thirteen, he enrolled in the art branch of Holyfield Road School. Then at the age of sixteen, he was accepted into the Kingston College of Art with a one year probation. One day, Clapton came across Robert Johnson’s music, which influenced him to buy his first electric guitar. He later on discovered booze and was expelled from college for one year. When Clapton finished college in 1963, he started to hang around the West End of London and tried to break into the music industry as a guitarist. He joined his first band, The Roosters, that same year. Unfortunately they broke up after just a few months. After The Roosters, he joined Casey Jones and The Engineers, which unsurprisingly, he also left. He had no other choice then to work as a laborer on construction sites in order to make ends meet. Later, he joined the Yardbirds and recorded his first songs with them, but because of their pop-oriented style, he was not pleased, and left them also. There were many other bands he joined after the Yardbirds, but he was never content with them. Therefore he decided to begin a solo

In his teens in high school he formed the band Golden Chords. Also during high school he enrolled in the arts collage of the University of Minnesota. During his time at the university he began performing solo in different