Artist:Duke Ellington
Song:Satin Doll
Album:The Essential Duke Ellington
This is part of my ongoing series Jazz for Beginners. My only criteria is to have a performance video and an album suitable for beginners. Of course it's impossible to cover Duke Ellington's entire career with one post. There are so many songs starting in the 20s. Satin Doll is one of his most popular songs. But it was written and recorded at a low point in his career. I'll get to that in a minute. Edward Kennedy Ellington was born Apr. 29, 1899 in Washington, DC. His parents both played piano. His mother started having him take piano lessons at age seven. Duke was a childhood nickname. As a teen, Ellington was interested in baseball. And then he got more interested in music by ragtime pianists like Eubie Blake. Washington pianist and bandleader Doc Perry taught Ellington to read music. And that's when he got serious. He just wasn't sure if music was a full time profession. Ellington studied commercial art. So he used that to get music gigs. He became successful locally. But when his drummer Sonny Greer was offered a job in New York, Ellington went with him. By 1926, Ellington signed with publisher Irving Mills and that's when Ellington started recording. He started working at the Cotton Club and got national exposure through their weekly radio show. And with the help of trumpeter Bubber Miley, Ellington's music got a harder edge. Miley died in 1932. Ellington was riding high for the next twenty years. But after WWII, most of the big bands faded and bebop was on the rise. Big bands were expensive to run. Count Basie ended his band but Ellington continued to tour. Guys started leaving the band. Ellington left Columbia and signed with Capitol in 1953. That's when Ellington wrote Satin Doll with Billy Strayhorn and it was released as a single. Capitol never released it on an album. Later, Johnny Mercer wrote lyrics for Satin Doll and Ella Fitzgerald sang it. That's when it became popular. Of course Ellington's career was revived after the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival and he returned to Columbia. You can get Satin Doll on this 2CD budget comp. This is from Sony so this version is probably from the 1959 album Jazz Party. Ellington's career revival continued until his death on May 24, 1974 at age 75. I hope to look at other periods of Ellington's career in the future. Here's Duke Ellington performing Satin Doll 1962.
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