Ellington :: essays research papers fc

An American jazz composer, orchestrator, bandleader, and pianist, composer of jazz music, I am all of this and probably more. I am Edward Kennedy (Duke) Ellington. I was nicknamed Duke by a boyhood friend of mine who prise my royal air. And the name stuck to me. I grew up listening to black music. At that time jazz was considered low and vulgar by most kempt and sophisticated people like myself. I was born in capital letter on April 29, 1899. Born to the son of James William Ellington and Eliza Jane Johnson. I am verbalize to be the most prolific composer of my time. Ive never actually had frequently education, but still I was able to develop good speech, dress, and manner. When I was young, the times were bad for us. There was agricultural depression. My family lived as middle-class citizens. We werent wealthy nor were we poor. My parents have musical comedy backgrounds. I got my first job selling peanuts at Washington Senators baseball games, and it was the first time I was placed as a performer for a crowd. When I was a teenager I played the piano in a musical style known as rag week. I attended Armstrong Manual learning School to study commercial art instead of going to an academics-oriented school. During the summers, in Philadelphia or Atlantic City, I began to seek out and listen to ragtime pianists there. While I was on vacation in Asbury Park, there was a hot pianist that I heard of, his name was Harvey Brooks. Guess what? At the end of my vacation I went and sought for Harvey Brooks in Philadelphia, that was where he showed me some pianistic tricks and shortcuts. His playacting triggered me to start up my music career, and whence you have it, me, Duke Ellington the musical is born. I learnt from Oliver Doc Perry and Louis Brown, they taught me to read music and helped me correct me playing skills on the piano. I also went to find piano playing jobs at clubs and cares in Washington. I actually dropped out of school to pursuer my music car eer. I played for my friends and at parties, and soon I organise a small dance band named The Dukes Serenaders in 1917.I move away from Washington to tonic York City in 1923. I went to New York to find musicians who could contribute special sounds to my band.