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Duke Ellington: Carnegie Hall
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Time and again in his career, Ellington's destiny was linked to developments in his home community. His first paid professional performance for a public audience was at True Reformers' Hall, an early landmark of U Street's prosperity and proclaimed by its builder as "an exemplar of the quality the Negro race could achieve." Even after moving to Harlem, Ellington returned to Washington many times to perform. One of his most important trips was to give a boost to the re-opening of the Howard Theater that had fallen on hard times in the late 1920s. At the Howard on September 29, 1931, Ellington was the top headliner and he played for an entire week to Standing Room Only audiences.
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Soon Duke began playing for his high school dances. He even composed his own songs like "Soda Fountain Rag." When he was 19, he started playing at parties, dance halls and other venues. He liked to wear flashy clothes and slick his hair back to impress the ladies in the audience.
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Undeterred, Ellington pursued another ambitious work — a major concert piece depicting the history of African-Americans. When Black, Brown and Beige premiered at Carnegie Hall in January 1943, a handful of critics sang its praises, but many others did not. Composer and educator David Baker notes that Ellington was quite sensitive to such criticism, which caused him to hesitate before taking on such extensive works again.
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