Duke Ellington's Influence On Jazz And American Music

Recognized as one of the greatest all time jazz figures Duke Ellington, whose career reached over a span of fifty years was mostly known for composing thousands of influential songs. As well as constituting into jazz an ensemble of western sounds which was referred to as “American Music”. This iconic figure has left a mark in the world of jazz for centuries to come.

Edward Kennedy Ellington better known as Duke Ellington, since a very young age had an intellectual musical intuition. At the young age of seven he began to take piano lessons according to an article titled Duke Ellington’s Biography, “for a while it appeared that Duke, who selected his lifetime name early on was going to be a performer.” As an inventive adolescent according to

This icon wasn’t just any musician, he was considered an exceptional performer, song writer, and bandleader. During the lifespan of his extraordinary career, Ellington’s orchestra was amongst the top five nationally. Factually composing songs of which became valuable in the entertainment industry of jazz music. Leading him to categorize with the top contemporaries of his time. Ellington was predominantly ground-breaking tradition in jazz with the way he would arrange his compositions in order to fit the personality of his band players. In fact, He was known to be especially picky about not playing a song the same way frequently, thus this would lead him to continuously rearrange the way he would play his songs often. For example, one of his most recognizable songs "Mood Indigo", was discovered to have been altered to sound different from when it originally came out compared to years

By this time he had secured a significant amount of stride playing technique which added more flavor to his music. It was during this time and the remaining of his career that he industrialized a concept known to be Jungle Sound. Since the Jungle sound was somewhat more evolved compared to the earlier jazz sounds, this allowed him to add more content in his music that contained a sense of gritty sounds from the brass section. Which help duke relate his music to that of living in the United States as an African American during ongoing segregation. Duke Ellington elated countless great strides not only in the musical expansion of the well-known to be the Harlem Renaissance, but most importantly also in racial and sociological growth as well as that time. That was considered to be one of Ellington’s greatest contribution socially and musically as an