The American Jazz Institute

Duke Ellington's prodigious talents evolved early on. He taught himself harmony at the piano and acquired the rudiments of orchestration by experimenting with his orchestra. The Ellington orchestra became a career-long workshop in which he "consulted" with band members to explore compositional alternatives. During the seminal Cotton Club period, his great talent for writing in a variety of musical forms was honed by the requirement to perform dance tunes, popular music and production numbers as well as the blues and pure jazz. It was during these formative years that Duke developed a truly extraordinary relationship with his orchestra. More even than the piano, his orchestra was his instrument, enabling him to freely experiment with the timbral colorings, tonal effects and unusual voicings that became the essence of his style. The "Ellington effect," as Billy Strayhorn called it, was virtually inimitable because it relied so heavily on the unique style of renowned musicians such as Sam Nanton, Harry Carney, Ray Nance, Rex Stewart, Cootie Williams, Lawrence Brown, Johnny Hodges, Jimmy Blanton, Ben Webster, and Strayhorn of course. Their legacy is on display in Ellingtonia 2001.