Duke Ellington & His Washingtonians

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Duke Ellington & His Washingtonians · The Washingtonians was the band name under which Duke Ellington became known in the early 1920s. Ellington was born in 1899 in Washington, D.C., and grew up with piano-playing parents. He wrote his first composition in 1914, Soda Fountain Rag, while still unable to read music. From 1917 he put together groups to play at dances. In 1919 he met the drummer Sonny Greer, and together they went to New York, where Ellington ended up in Harlem.

Music and breakthrough

There the group played in 1923 under the name Elmer Snowden and his Black Sox Orchestra. It was an ensemble of seven men, including the trumpeter Bubber Miley, which in September 1923 began a four-year residency at the Hollywood Club, later the Kentucky Club. They called themselves The Washingtonians. When Snowden left in early 1924, Ellington took over the leadership. That year he made eight records. The orchestra grew to ten players and found a sound of its own in Ellington's arrangements, the rhythms of Harlem, the growling trombones and the high trumpets.

Influence

This was the foundation on which Ellington went on to build. In 1927 the orchestra gained a permanent place at the Cotton Club in Harlem, with weekly radio broadcasts. Bubber Miley, with his growl trumpet, gave the group a hotter sound, in the style that was then called Jungle Style. The Washingtonians are thus the starting point of the career of one of the most important composers in jazz.

Listening

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