“U.M.M.G.” stood for the Upper Manhattan Medical Group, the practice of Strayhorn and Ellington’s friend and physician Dr. It is beautifully poignant and features a heartfelt performance by Johnny Hodges. “Blood Count” is a song Strayhorn sent from the hospital for a Carnegie Hall concert the orchestra gave in 1967. It features Johnny Hodges’s smooth, swinging saxophone. “Snibor” was written by Strayhorn in 1949 and was titled for a publisher friend whose name it spells backward. The album features both well-known and previously unrecorded compositions that show Strayhorn’s gift as an arranger and composer. Three months after Strayhorn’s death, Ellington and his orchestra were in the studio recording And His Mother Called Him Bill, a fifteen-song tribute of material Strayhorn wrote between 19. After one concert, a friend found Ellington backstage by himself, with his head hung low, playing Strayhorn’s “Lotus Blossom” again and again.
Ellington was devastated and angry, and for the first time in his life didn’t want to play. Strayhorn was fifty-one when he died on May 31, 1967, after a two-year battle with esophageal cancer. Their writing styles were so similar that it is impossible to tell where one stopped and the other took over. When they had a chance to work together in person, their sessions were often all-night writing marathons, where they would write and sleep in shifts, a musical tag team that alternated throughout the night until they were finished. Their relationship was so close that, wherever he was in the world, Ellington would call Strayhorn when he had an idea for a song, and they would compose it over the phone. Strayhorn’s nickname for Ellington was the Big Monster Ellington in turn called him the Little Monster or Sweet Pea.
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Their work led to such classics as “Take the A Train,” which Strayhorn wrote after listening to Ellington’s directions on how to get to his audition, “Daydream,” “Star Crossed Lovers,” “Satin Doll,” and the soundtrack to the movie Anatomy of a Murder. It is a collaboration that started in 1938 and ended when Strayhorn died in 1967. One of the most productive relationships in music, let alone jazz, was the one Duke Ellington had with his musical alter ego, Billy Strayhorn. A genius has passed.Duke Ellington – And His Mother Called Him Bill Ella Fitzgerald summed up the occasion: “It’s a very sad day. Hisįuneral was attended by over 12,000 people at the Cathedral of St.
He died of lung cancer and pneumonia on May 24, 1974, a month after his 75th birthday, and is buried in the Bronx, in New York City. He was later awarded several other prizes: The Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 and the Legion of Honor byįrance in 1973, the highest civilian honors in each country. From Black, Brown and Beige (1943) to The Far East Suite (1966) to The Uwis Suite (1972), the suite format was used to give his jazz songs a more empowering meaning, resonance, and purpose: To exalt, mythologize, and re-contextualize the African-American experience on a grand scale.ĭuke Ellington was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1966.
Though he is a household name for his songs, Ellington was also an unparalleled visionary for his extended suites, composed with Billy Strayhorn. Duke Ellington’s popular compositions set the bar for generations of brilliant jazz, pop, theatre, and soundtrack composers to come. Mood Indigo was supposedly written while on a road trip. The most amazing part about Ellington was that he had some of his most creative periods while he was on the road. His best-known titles include: It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing), Sophisticated Lady, Mood Indigo, Solitude, In a Mellow Tone, I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart, and In a Sentimental Mood. I try to catch the character and mood and feeling of my people.”ĭuke Ellington is best remembered for the over 3,000 songs that he composed during his lifetime. When asked what inspired him to write, Ellington replied, “My men and my race are the inspiration of my work. Wynton Marsalis said it best when he said, “His music sounds like America.” Because of the unmatched artistic heights to which he soared, no one deserves the phrase “beyond category” more than Ellington, for it aptly describes his life as well. His legacy continues to live onward and will endure for generations to come. Simply put, Ellington transcends boundaries and fills the world with a treasure trove of music that renews itself through every generation of fans and music-lovers. In his fifty-year career, he played over 20,000 performances in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East as well as Asia. Duke Ellington influenced millions of people both around the world and at home.
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