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Duke Ellington:
A Spiritual Biography By Janna Tull Steed
New York, Crossroad, 1999. 192 pp. $19.95. Anyone paging through the index of composers in The United Methodist Hymnal may be surprised to find, in the company of Isaac Watts, the Wesleys and Martin Luther, the entry, "Ellington, (Edward Kennedy) Duke (1899-1974) 728." Ellington's composition, "Come Sunday," is #728 in that hymnbook. And on the program of the usually staid annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in November 1999 was a swinging concert by the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra, saluting the close of the Ellington Centennial Year with selections from his Sacred Concerts, featuring vocal soloists and a tap dancer.
Janna Tull Steed, writer and producer of an hour-long public radio documentary on Ellington's sacred music, and a Methodist minister, has put together an attractive volume with recent bibliography, a useful discography by Ellington biographer John Edward Hasse, a chronology of Ellington's life, and a generous collection of photographs. The particular focus of this study is on the religious dimensions of Ellington's work, especially his three Sacred Concerts, premiered in 1965, 1968, and 1973. The book opens with a recollection of Duke Ellington's funeral at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan on May 27, 1974. The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York presided. Music included Ellington's "Mood Indigo," "Solitude," "I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good," "Satin Doll," and "Come Sunday." Ella Fitzgerald sang "Just a Closer Walk with Thee." At the conclusion, the congregation sang "Onward Christian Soldiers"; Steed observes, "Musicians who didn't know all the words scatted through the verses." In a front-page story, The New York Times called him "America's foremost composer."
While some critics have understood Ellington's sense for religion to be expressed only in the three Sacred Concerts given near the end of his life, Steed argues that Ellington always had an interest in spiritual matters, beginning with home and with church participation in Washington, DC (Chapter 3). His early compositions such as "Hymn of Sorrow" (1935) and "Come Sunday" (1943) evidence that interest. Steed cites Ellington's claim to be "a man of faith who regularly prayed and read his Bible." She tells that when a religiously sensitive jazz singer objected to having vocal scatting and tap dancing in the First Sacred Concert, Ellington "picked up the well-worn Bible in his dressing room and immediately found the passage in 2 Samuel from which he took the lyrics, "David Danced Before the Lord."
Chapter 4 tells of the birth of Ellington's son, Mercer (1919), the Ellington band at the Cotton Club in Harlem (1927-31), his divorce, and subsequent discouragement. From this period came the classic "Mood Indigo" (1930). Chapter 5 reports on the band's remarkable popularity on a tour through England, Holland, and France. The death of his mother in 1935 left Ellington in despair, "from which nothing seemed to lift him, not even the Scriptures he pored over," says Steed. But then Ellington met Billy Strayhorn who soon became his most important musical partner. Strayhorn wrote "Take the 'A' Train," which was soon the band's theme song, and life was back on track again.
"Dreams and Realities" (Chapter 6) chronicles Ellington's successes during the 40s. This was the time when standards such as "Sophisticated Lady," "I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good," and "It Don't Mean a Thing (If it Ain't Got That Swing)" were popular, along with a major work, Black, Brown and Beige. Ellington composed with the inspiration and help of his band, to whom he referred as his "expensive gentlemen."
Chapters 7-10 continue the story, culminating in accounts of his increasing religious interests and the production of the three Sacred Concerts. The amazing Swedish soprano, Alice Babs, was featured in the Second Sacred Concert. In it is a work dedicated to the Lutheran "jazz pastor" John Gensel, entitled "The ShepherdWho Watches Over the Night Flock." Concerning Ellington's Psalm 150 (which I have used as a "closer" for my courses in the Psalms for years), Steed writes, "Ellington didn't simply exhort hearers to praise God; with horns and drums and cymbals played by master musicians, with choirs, vocal soloists and joyful dancers, he showed just how it could be done." As a longtime Ellington fan, a sometime jazz trombonist, and a full-time professor of Old Testament, I commend this as an informed, intelligent, and delightful read!
JAMES LIMBURG
Luther Seminary St. Paul, MN
Copyright Theology Today Oct 2000
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved
Remembering A Giant.(musician Duke Ellington)(Brief Article)
HIS signature sign-off, known the world over, was, "We love you, madly." And 100 years after he entered the world--his family, his fans and his friends still love the Duke madly. Almost everybody who remembered Duke spoke of his passion for music, women (he was married once, but had a number of long-term relationships), his hypochondria (a band member said once that if he stubbed his toe, he would call his doctor, even if he had to call from Egypt)--his elegance and his irony.
Ellington was famous for greeting everyone with four kisses. When he was honored at the White House in 1969, President Nixon noticed this greeting as guests went through the receiving line and asked Ellington, "Four kisses? Why four?" Ellington replied, "One for each cheek, Mr. President." Whereupon, as the story goes, the phenomenally uptight president turned and began to kiss his guests four times.
Edward Kennedy (Duke) Ellington was born April 29, 1899, to Daisy Kennedy Ellington and James Edward Ellington. By all accounts, his childhood was filled with love, and he was spoiled rotten by a the women in his family, particularly his mother, who adored him.
Ellington was already a star by the time his sister, Ruth Dorothea, was 10, and when she was 12, Duke sent for his parents and sister to move from Washington, D.C., to New York. "But my father didn't want to go, so my mother, who adored Duke, grabbed me and brought me to New York," Ruth Ellington says. Several weeks later the family was reunited when Duke's father joined them in New York. Although his sister's original career goal was to teach biology after she graduated from Columbia University, Duke quickly changed that. "Oh no, Ruthie, we're going into the music publishing business, and you're the president," he told hen She is still the president of Tempo Inc., continuing to publish Ellington's music.
"He was the only brother I had and I was his only sister," Ellington says. "He took care of me from the time I was 12, and he's still taking care of me."
Ellington was loved by the many women in his life, but his sister was his official escort. "He took me to the White House because he didn't want his women to be upset," she says. "If he had picked one, all the rest of them would have screamed. Imagine a song like `Sophisticated Lady,' I imagine he told every woman that he knew that she was the inspiration for that song."
Duke inspired many entertainers and musicians. Singer Joe Williams, who sang at Ellington's White House party and at his funeral, remembers him well. "I found that he was one of the most exciting people I've ever met," he says. "A spirit like that never dies."
Williams says when President Kennedy was killed, Ellington was on a State Department tour in the Middle East, and when he got the news, he cried and canceled the rest of his tour. "Ellington was head and shoulders above it all; friends would say Ellington was in orbit before we knew there was an orbit," he says.
One of Williams' favorite Ellington stories occurred at a 1970s press conference when reporters asked Ellington if his music would be making a statement that Black is Beautiful.
"Ellington said, `I thought I did that some time ago. Let's see, there was "Black, Brown and Beige," "Black Beauty," "Ebony Rhapsody," "Mood Indigo," "Brown-Skinned Gal in a Calico Gown"; I thought I said that.'"
Dr. Billy Taylor, who also performed at that White House party and at Ellington's funeral, remembers Ellington for his generosity and the support he gave him and other young artists. "He really was coming from an African-American point of view all of his career," Taylor says. "He was saying something as an African-American who grew up under segregation in Washington, D.C., who played for kings and queens and came back to more segregation, and instead of marching or screaming or doing other things, he wrote music and the music touched people, and I believe, changed people."
Ellington's only son, Mercer, was dedicated to his father, leading the Ellington Orchestra for more than 20 years after Duke's death in 1974, until his death in 1996. Mercer's daughter, Mercedes Ellington, is carrying on the family legacy as president of the Duke Ellington Foundation, a new foundation dedicated to recognizing the Duke's other talents as a painter and a writer.
"We wanted to award and recognize and give scholarships to people who are innovators," she says, "not only in the performing arts, because there are lots of scholarships that have been named in that area, but in the visual arts as well."
Duke Ellington was a Renaissance Man, who loved painting and initially won a scholarship in fine art, but didn't take it because he was already involved in jazz. "My grandfather told Tony Bennett, a good family friend, that everybody should do two things," Mercedes Ellington says.
"Bennett told me that was the inspiration for his [Bennett's] painting." Duke followed his own advice. He loved painting, but he also loved words. "My grandfather was a poet. He had dictionaries all over the place, rhyming dictionaries and thesauruses and all kinds of things with words."
She says Duke wanted his grandchildren to lead normal lives, although most of his four grandchildren and several nephews ended up touring the world with Duke and his orchestra. "I think my family's warm and fuzzy moments with Duke all centered around mealtime and food," she says. "Picnics backstage, Frank's Steakhouse on 125th Street, where we went after the shows (Duke loved steak) and Chinese food, where everyone would taste everyone else's food, whether it was Chinese or not."
There are four Ellington grandchildren, two boys and two girls. "Gaye is an artist and painter and has done portraits of both my father and grandfather," she said. "Edward is a social worker who teaches karate and tennis, and Paul, the youngest, is conducting the Duke Ellington Orchestra."
Mercedes is a dancer and choreographer. She has performed in a number of Broadway productions and is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music. "Each of us in our own way is doing his or her part [to keep Ellington's legacy alive]."
Ellington defied categories and disliked having his music analyzed. He often compared music to food, saying fish, fowl and meat were just the starting point, "the art is in the cooking." By all accounts, Edward Kennedy (Duke) Ellington could really cook.
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