Edward Kennedy Ellington, that is, Duke Ellington, was born in Washington, D.C., on this date in 1899. The PBS web site for JAZZ A Film By Ken Burns sums up Ellington succinctly.
Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was the most prolific composer of the twentieth century in terms of both number of compositions and variety of forms. His development was one of the most spectacular in the history of music, underscored by more than fifty years of sustained achievement as an artist and an entertainer. He is considered by many to be America’s greatest composer, bandleader, and recording artist.
The extent of Ellington’s innovations helped to redefine the various forms in which he worked. He synthesized many of the elements of American music — the minstrel song, ragtime, Tin Pan Alley tunes, the blues, and American appropriations of the European music tradition — into a consistent style with which, though technically complex, has a directness and a simplicity of expression largely absent from the purported art music of the twentieth century. Ellington’s first great achievements came in the three-minute song form, and he later wrote music for all kinds of settings: the ballroom, the comedy stage, the nightclub, the movie house, the theater, the concert hall, and the cathedral. His blues writing resulted in new conceptions of form, harmony, and melody, and he became the master of the romantic ballad and created numerous works that featured the great soloists in his jazz orchestra.
The Today in History page from the Library of Congress has much about Ellington. The Red Hot Jazz Archive has a number of Ellington recordings on line [RealAudio files].
Today is also the birthday
… of Jerry Seinfeld. He’s 55.
… of four-time Oscar nominee, two-time winner Daniel Day-Lewis. He’s 52. Lewis won for My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown and for There Will Be Blood.
… of three-time Oscar nominee Michelle Pfeiffer. She’s 51. Once upon a time, before she gave it all up to go to Hollywood, Michelle was a checker at our local Von’s supermarket.
… of Jan Brady. Eve Plumb is 51.
… of one-time Oscar nominee (Pulp Fiction) Uma Thurman. She’s 39.
… of Andre Agassi, 39.
William Randolph Hearst was born on this date in 1863. His father, George Hearst, was 42, his mother Phoebe Apperson Hearst was 20. Was Hearst the model for Charles Foster Kane? Here is what Orson Welles had to say in 1975.