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Featured Review > Jonathan Eig > Duke Ellington
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Duke Ellington often joked that it was the frequent appearance of beautiful woman at the lower
end of his keyboard that first fed his love for music. This, I suspect, was Ellington's modest way of
saying that his romantic aspirations exceeded his musical ones, at least during his teenage years. At
a later age, when he better understood the complexities of women and music, music seemed to
gain a slight edge. But by any account, he loved them both madly.
Regardless of whether Ellington exaggerated his tale of romantic motivation, there is something
poetic in this legend. It seems appropriate for a young man to study music in pursuit of love, and if
the art should prosper as a result of hormones, so much the better. The finest works of literature,
fine art and song have been shaped by love as much as technique, after all. And no one offers
better proof than Edward Kennedy Ellington, who wrote some 2,000 songs in his lifetime without
resorting to lyrics about violence, drugs or - today's pop favorite - women who rhyme with "witch."
His autobiography, remember, bore the sweet title "Music is My Mistress." But I mention this not to
launch a tirade on trends in modern music. The point here is to talk about Ellington, who today, 22
years after his death, continues to grow in stature. A case might well be made that he was
America's greatest composer - in any genre. He was, for decades, the composer of America's most
popular music; he led, held together and shaped the finest jazz band of all time; he traveled
constantly in order to build support for the music; during a time of stiff-necked segregation, he
served as a symbol of pride, dignity and sophistication for blacks everywhere; and through it all he
composed works of such stunning originality and emotional depth that they are all but impossible to
perform adequately today.
Even Mercer Ellington, Duke's son, who passed away earlier this year, could not do his father's work
justice. The Ellington band died with Ellington because he was not just its leader but its creator and
spirit. Perhaps when Ellington died in 1974, so too did the age of musical romance. Since then,
even the better love songs seem born more of commerce than emotion. Jazz music no longer
reaches wide commercial audiences, as it did during Ellington's prime. Its romantic appeal is limited,
of course, by that lack of popularity. But even those musicians who have managed successful
careers these days seem to devote far more attention to technique than style, and the result is
often a cold update of familiar songs and styles. Their problem, I suspect, is that they have never
considered music a mistress. This is a difficult thing to teach, even at the finest colleges.
The DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago recently honored Ellington nicely,
hosting a Smithsonian exhibit on his life and work. In conjunction with that exhibit, they offered a
symposium, as well as a performance by the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, which performed 20 of
Duke's delicious tunes, including lesser-known gems such as Warm Valley, Almost Cried and Isfahan. During
the symposium, a man in the back of the crowd stood and asked the panel of experts, in effect, what was wrong
with musicians today. He said something vaguely disapproving of Wynton Marsalis. Why, the man asked
in so many words, didn't anyone make him feel the way Ellington had? The panelists didn't answer him
directly. But in the course of the afternoon, the man might have found his answer.
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