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Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 - May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 to the rest of his life. Ellington, born en ghetto in Washington, DC and later established in New York City, gained a national profile through the performances of his orchestra in the Cotton Club in Harlem. He also recorded songs by his band members, such as Juan Tizol's "Caravan", which gave a Spanish tinge to the big band jazz. At the end of the 1930s, Ellington began a nearly thirty-year collaboration with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn. With Strayhorn, he composed multiple extensive compositions, of suites, as well as many short pieces. At the beginning of Strayhorn's involvement, Ellington's orchestra consisted of bassist Jimmy Blanton and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster for a few years and reached a creative peak. A few years later, after an uneventful period, a performance by Ellington and his orchestra at the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1956 led to a major revival and regular world tours. Ellington appeared for the most American recording companies of his time, appeared in a score of several films, and composed a handful of musicals. Although he was a playing figure in the history of jazz, in the opinion of Gunther Schuller and Barry Kernfeld, "the most important composers of the genre", Ellington himself embraced the expression "out of the category", as he considered it a liberating principle, referring to his music as part of the more general category of American music. Ellington was known for his inventive use of the orchestra, or big band, but also for his eloquence and charisma. In 1999 he posthumously received a Pulitzer Prize Special Award for music.
