Duke Ellington's America by Harvey G. Cohen

And with “Black, Brown and Beige” in 1943, he proudly delineated the black contribution to American history.In the galaxy of remarkable individuals who defined jazz as a new mode of expression, two shine with the strongest and most enduring force: Louis Armstrong and Edward Kennedy 'Duke' Ellington.īoth were charismatic and persistently original, and although they had little formal musical training, they strode the global stage with a confidence equal to that of any other great artist of their generation but in most other ways they were quite different.

Long before black was officially beautiful-in 1928, to be precise-he had written “Black Beauty” and dedicated it to a great artist, Florence Mills. He made his subtle, telling contributions to the civil rights struggle in musical statements-in “Jump for Joy” in 1941, in “The Deep South Suite” in 1946, and in My People in 1963. contributed one day’s pay, he said, $100 million could be raised for a more concerted lobbying effort-one that he would be willing to coordinate personally. Ellington took flack throughout his career for occasionally appearing aloof on the matter of civil rights.īut the jazz critic Stanley Dance, a close confidant of Ellington, read the following at Ellington’s funeral in 1974, and it rings true today:Ĭategories of class, race, color, creed and money were obnoxious to him. If, on the other hand, every black person in the U.S. In a “private” 1964 interview quoted by Cohen, Ellington said the march resulted mainly in the enrichment of hotel and restaurant owners, while creating a grand spectacle that would be difficult ever to repeat. Though Ellington was filled with deep admiration for King, he was skeptical of the march. And though Ellington was known for his witty monologues and banter, he did not typically sing on his recordings. According to Cohen, Ellington sang the lyrics himself when he performed it in the summer of 1963. Cohen’s magnificent 2011 cultural biography Duke Ellington’s America, which has a comprehensive chapter on My People. In his autobiography, Music is My Mistress, Ellington claims it is “the first published song that sang praises.” And King himself heard it rehearsed, appreciating it so much that he, allegedly, wept-an anecdote recounted in Harvey G. King by Big Maybelle, Nina Simone, and others. “King Fit the Battle of Alabam” is not widely known, but deserves an honored place among the many musical tributes to Dr.

Perhaps Ellington associated those in the generation of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman with Moses. Joshua is from the generation after (hence the title of David Remnick’s 2008 piece on Barack Obama, “ The Joshua Generation”). Today, it’s surprising to hear Ellington connect King to Joshua: Thanks to the metaphor of the mountaintop in the haunting speech he gave on April 3, 1968, the night before his assassination, King is forever associated with Moses.

Duke Ellington's America by Harvey G. Cohen