LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Duke Ellington: Cotton Club
built 659 days ago
[T]he real Duke Ellington story is in his music. Recordings are now widely available of Duke’s music from his early years at the Cotton Club to his last recorded concert at Eastbourne. If you want to know Duke Ellington, all you have to do is listen.
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Ellington struck out on his own. He organized a band in Washington and began to play regular engagements. His band went to New York City, where they made their first recordings. When Duke Ellington and his Washingtonians played at the famous Cotton Club in Harlem, they were on their way to success.
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Duke Ellington and his Orchestra is perhaps the greatest of all Jazz bands. The group stayed together for over fifty years and recorded and wrote some of America's greatest music. The band started in New York City under name of the Washingtonians in 1923, they then briefly became known as Duke Ellington and his Kentucky Club Orchestra, then as Duke Ellington and his Cotton Club Orchestra from 1927 to 1930. It was through weekly radio broadcasts from the Cotton Club that the orchestra gained nationwide exposure and became famous. After 1931 the band was billed as Duke Ellington and his Orchestra.
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In 1937, Ellington returned to the Cotton Club which had relocated to the mid-town theater district. In the summer of that year, his father died, and due to many expenses Ellington's financial condition was tight. Things improved in 1938 and he met and moved in with Cotton Club employee Beatrice "Evie" Ellis. After splitting with agent Irving Mills, he signed on with William Morris. The 1930's ended with a very successful European tour just as World War II loomed.
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As a composer and bandleader, Ellington combined his players’ individual sounds like an artist working from a palette. The distinctive results—from the hot jazz of Harlem’s Cotton Club to classical-inspired suites and pop standards—earned Ellington and his band a legendary place in music history. In scoring music for his famous jazz orchestra, Duke Ellington wrote for individuals, not instruments. This “Mood Indigo” sheet music page, 1932-42, in the “Treasures exhibition” features his trombone section: Joe “Tricky Sam” Nanton, Lawrence Brown, and Juan Tizol.
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Already known in New York thanks to the new invention of radio, Ellington visited the city in 1923 and was persuaded by Fats Waller to move there with Elmer Snowden's band, The Washingtonians. From 1923 to 1927 the group played in the prohibition-era clubs of Broadway. Duke eventually became the group's leader and wrote original compositions for the 10-piece orchestra.
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