Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and leader of a jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington wrote or collaborated on more than one thousand compositions; his extensive body of work is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, and many of his pieces have become standards. He also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, such as Juan Tizol's "Caravan", which brought a Spanish tinge to big band jazz. At the end of the 1930s, Ellington began a nearly thirty-year collaboration with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his writing and arranging companion. Although a pivotal figure in the history of jazz, Ellington himself embraced the phrase "beyond category", considering it a liberating principle, and referring to his music as part of the more general category of American Music. He was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize Special Award for music in 1999.