Duke Ellington

USA, 1917–1974

American composer, pianist and bandleader (1899-1974) who led his orchestra for close to fifty years. He wrote for the specific players in the band, an approach that produced an unusually large body of original composition within jazz.

MusicRoots documents 3 artists who influenced Duke Ellington and 14 artists Duke Ellington influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Duke Ellington?

• Louis Armstrong — Ellington called Armstrong 'the most original musician' and learned freedom of solo improvisation from him.
• Scott Joplin — Joplin's ragtime was the piano foundation Ellington grew up on as a child.
• James P. Johnson — James P. Johnson was Ellington's teacher in Harlem stride piano.

Which artists did Duke Ellington influence?

• Cecil Taylor — Ellington was Taylor's foundation: 'I never would have thought of playing the piano without thinking it out along Ellington's lines, and that's the base.'
• George Gershwin — Gershwin and Ellington were mutual influences working to bridge jazz and classical music in the 1920s.
• Stevie Wonder — Ellington was Stevie's hero — 'Sir Duke' (1976) is his explicit tribute, and his instrumental writing looked directly to Ellington's jazz sophistication.
• Robert Fripp — Fripp played in a dance band before he played rock, and the habit of writing for an ensemble rather than for himself stayed.
• Django Reinhardt — Django toured the US with Ellington in 1946; Ellington was his primary model for jazz sophistication and composition.
• Mulatu Astatke — Ellington is one of Astatke's heroes and an obvious influence on his arranging; Astatke appeared as a special guest on Ellington's 1973 Ethiopian tour.
• Nina Simone — Simone cited Ellington as a major model for combining jazz sophistication with personal expression and orchestral imagination.
• Steely Dan — Ellington's sophisticated orchestration and jazz composition were a lifelong model for Fagen — the band takes its aspiration from the jazz tradition he embodies.
• Thelonious Monk — Duke Ellington was one of Monk's stated influences — Ellington's rich, unconventional harmony and orchestral colour shaped Monk's chord voicings and pianistic touch.
• Boris Vian — Vian's first jazz impression, in 1933, and a lifelong one — he was Ellington's liaison in Paris three decades later.
• The Skatalites — Jazz was what the Skatalites played before ska existed, and they kept playing it — 'Caravan' among the tunes they took over.
• Clare Fischer — The jazz-writing end of Fischer's list — orchestration as composition.
• Jan Johansson — One of the two writers Johansson worked from — orchestral jazz as composition rather than a frame for solos, which is what his large-ensemble arranging is.
• Gil Evans — Evans dated his career to an Ellington concert in 1927, and heard him on the radio for years after.