This paper will discuss the career and musical accomplishments of Duke Ellington, the renowned musician and showman who proved to the world that jazz could and should be considered as a serious form of music. Edward Kennedy Ellington, who was later to be known as "Duke," was born to a middle-class family in Washington, D.C. on April 29, 1899. Growing up in comfortable surroundings with plenty of love and attention, the young Ellington received much encouragement which helped him to embark on a creative career. In fact, "marked as a special child, he started on piano at seven and soon cultivated the poise, flair for leadership, and ducal charm that earned him his title" (Sales 78). The love and support he received in his early life gave Ellington an unshakable faith in himself. He soon developed a goal to become truly great at something; by the time he was a teenager this was manifested as a full-blown desire to become a great musician. The young Ellington exhibited an uncanny strength of determination in pursuit of his goal. Even while a teenager, he would proudly say to his mother, "I'm going to have everybody in the world call me Duke" (George 31).
The teenage Ellington became fully absorbed in his piano studies and he soon learned to master the styles of a number of well-known players of the time. His first musical love was a new style which emerged around the turn of the century and came to be known as "ragtime" (Collier 15). In fact, many of Ellington's later compositions were strongly influenced by "ragtime chord sequences" (Williams 29). In this respect, Ellington's works contain relatively simple chord progressions; however, this simple framework creates the potential for incorporating rather intricate arrangements into the music, particularly in the hands of a master like the Duke.
In the early 1920s, Duke followed the advice of his friends and moved to New York City to pursue his career as a musician. At fi...