On a spring day one hundred years ago, a baby named Edward Kennedy Ellington came into this world. He was raised in a segregated Washington and a segregated America that treated him—and all other people of color—as inferior. On that day, April 29, 1899, no one could predict that young Edward Ellington would overcome racial, social, and musical obstacles to become a world-famous artist and celebrity known far and wide as Duke....that, despite very little formal musical training, he would go on to write more than 1,200 compositions, creating hundreds of musical masterworks and a body of music likely to resound through the ages....that this baby boy would grow up to lead a band for fifty years, through 10,000 recordings, 20,000 performances, and 10 million miles of travels....that he would receive the highest honors of Ethiopia, France, and the United States....that he would create and occupy his own magnificent place among American cultural heroes, a place beyond any existing category, and would leave an enormous legacy.

Based on years of study, I have come to regard Ellington not only as one of the foremost musicians of the 20th century but also as the greatest all-around musician this country has produced. That is a bold statement: the United States has birthed many great composers, orchestrators and arrangers, conductors and bandleaders, soloists and accompanists. But consider this: no one—not Charles Ives, George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, John Philip Sousa, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, or anyone else—wore all those hats so brilliantly as did Ellington. And he did all this while working ostensibly as a dance-band leader—for that was the Ellington band's bread-and-butter—and traveling almost incessantly.

Duke Ellington did not invent the musical medium of the jazz orchestra (the big band). But finding a public eager for cabaret and especially dance music and the technology to take the music to them, Ellington came along at just the right time to make full use of the jazz orchestra, integrate the jazz soloist into it, define a new and highly personal kind of American music, and secure and inspire an audience representing all classes in American society and people of many lands.

Ellington did all this by keeping himself open to new musical ideas; by experimenting with and learning from new sounds; trying out new musicians in his band; and by maintaining his openness, flexibility, and inclusiveness.

Throughout his career, Ellington largely avoided fads and sought out his own direction. The African-American composer Will Marion Cook urged Ellington, "First you find the logical way, and when you find it, avoid it. Let your inner self break through and guide you. Don't try to be anyone else but yourself." This became Ellington's private musical credo.

Ellington mastered and exploited a series of new technologies for the dissemination of music: from the electrical microphone, to three-minute recordings, radio, sound movies, television, to the long-playing phonograph record. In so doing, Ellington created what critic Gary Giddins has called "surely the finest recorded documentation of a living composer's art since Edison patented the phonograph."

Individualism and Inspiration

One of Ellington's greatest achievements was heightening individuality and fashioning it into something even greater: a collective that brought out the best in each person and produced a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Almost without exception, Ellington's top soloists made the best music of their careers playing in Ellington's band. He nurtured their individual talents and inspired them.

It was not a one-way street: the traffic went both directions. Ellington's players inspired him as a composer; and in a number of instances they contributed riffs, melodic lines, portions of compositions, and even entire compositions to the Ellington repertory. (They were not always properly credited—especially so in the case of Billy Strayhorn, who as an off-stage member of the Ellington orchestra from 1939 until his death in 1967 contributed mightily to the Ellington band's music.) Ellington and his musicians comprised a yin-yang.

If one of the central problems in the American experience has been making democracy work for all, then Ellington's story offers lessons. To be sure, he carried a regal name, bearing, and perhaps outlook; and his ensemble was no democracy: the collective governance of the early years gradually gave way to a benign autocracy. And yet, the Duke Ellington Orchestra was a highly participatory miniature society: the dancers or audience participated in each evening's unfolding; and each player in the band contributed, could express an opinion, and mattered.

Individuality, which like civil liberty is a fundamental part of the American democratic political structure, was encouraged.

If democracy is concerned especially with the relationship of the individual to the group, the Duke Ellington Orchestra provides inspiration that each person's strengths can be maximized and limitations minimized—and that despite great differences in temperament, age, politics, region, color, and aesthetic style, and in spite of personal frictions, a disparate group of people can cleave together and create something powerful and good. Ellington forged a unity out of the diversity of his players, viewing their pluralism as a strength and affirming it throughout his career. Wouldn't it be refreshing if our national leaders followed Ellington's lead and treated Americans' diversity as a sign of our nation's vigor?

In transforming disparate individuals into a unique group sound and personalizing the orchestra, Ellington (as a Stockholm reviewer wrote in 1939) created "orchestral art of the highest order."

Ellington preferred acoustic instruments played, in many cases, in a very human and personal way—with players such as "Tricky Sam" Nanton, Bubber Miley, Barney Bigard, and Cootie Williams producing growls, wails, cries, keens, whispers, and laments. And—on such numbers as Creole Love Call, Transblucency, On a Turquoise Cloud, and T.G.T.T.— he memorably featured the human voice singing wordless vocals. Through these methods, he and his musicians transformed instrumental into vocal music and vice-versa. Ellington wrapped himself in a world of humanly created sound, sound on a human scale, where each man and woman could make a real difference.

Ellington's Archives

Ellington's star had been in the ascendancy since his death. Then in 1988 a major event occurred: the Smithsonian Institution (through the support of the U.S. Congress) acquired his archives, which had been sitting in a New York City warehouse for years—unheated, unairconditioned, at-risk, and disorganized. The acquisition sent a wave of excitement through the jazz world. And no wonder: the trove included 100,000 pages of unpublished Ellington music (scores and parts for the Ellington band) as well as 100,000 more pages of business records, manuscripts for his memoirs, tour itineraries, concert programs, publicity scrapbooks, fan mail, and other documents. Rounding out the collection were 500 artifacts (customized music stands, medals, trophies, awards, stage clothing), 1000 recordings, and 2000 photographs.

Typically, when an archive acquires a collection so vast and disorganized as this, it keeps it closed to the public until it has been cataloged and everything is orderly. However, John A. Fleckner, the head of the Smithsonian's Archives Center of the National Museum of American History, made the decision to open the collection while it was being processed. This meant many interruptions for the archivists and thus delayed the completion of the cataloging. But it has meant that for ten years the collection has been available.

Musicians ranging from conductors Maurice Peress, Gunther Schuller, and David Baker; to transcribers David Berger, Jeff Lindberg, and Charlie Harrison; to performers Wynton Marsalis, James Newton, and Bennie Wallace; and many more have done research in the collection. This has led to performances that would not otherwise have been possible—or if possible, not nearly as accurate—at venues ranging from colleges and universities to Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and the Smithsonian Institution.

Nuances in Ellington's tonal colors, voicings, and harmonic language have become clearer upon study of the scores and parts. The characteristic writing and arranging styles of Ellington, Strayhorn, and the Ellington band members who sometimes wrote for the band are clearer. One can sometimes witness the evolution of a piece from short score to parts to the recording. And one can sometimes see the way that Ellington re-ordered sections after the parts were written; he would typically tinker with each piece in the recording studio up to the final moment.

Ellington Rising

The gradual ascension of Ellington's status sped up as a result of the Smithsonian's acquisition of the Ellington collection. More than perhaps any other institution, the Smithsonian can put a sort of "Good Housekeeping" seal of cultural approval on something; and the fact that this pre-eminent institution would acquire the Ellington archive—and do so with funds earmarked by the Congress—gave Ellington new legitimacy. Then both Lincoln Center and the Smithsonian established regular jazz orchestras, both of whom have devoted considerable energies into performing Ellington's works. Lincoln Center now also operates a high school band contest, Essentially Ellington, that includes the creation and distribution of scores and parts free of charge to participating high schools—and an annual contest in New York, held near the time of Ellington's birthdate. Jazz at Lincoln Center's artistic director, Wynton Marsalis, has become one of the most public and consistent champions of Ellington's music. "I don't think there's any aspect of Afro-American music and American music," Marsalis has said, "that was closed to Duke Ellington. He could go through any door and do something hipper than whoever was in that door before him."

Spurred on by the example of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, aided by the new availability of Ellington's original scores and parts, and abetted by an increasing covey of transcribers, more and more jazz orchestras have been a-birthing across the nation and have been turning their attention to Ellington—for example, the North Carolina Jazz Orchestra (Jim Ketch, director), the Great American Music Ensemble (Doug Richards, director), and the Chicago Jazz Ensemble (Bill Russo, director). The Ohio Jazz Arts Ensemble (under the direction of Ray Eubanks), while not strictly a repertory band, has been performing Ellington's music for years, as has the Jazz Members Big Band (led by Jeff Lindberg) of Chicago.

At the collegiate level, educators such as David Baker at Indiana University, David Joyner at the University of North Texas, Bill Russo at Columbia College-Chicago, Loren Schoenberg at the Mannes College of Music/New School, Andrew Homzy of Concordia University (Montreal), and Doug Richards at Virginia Commonwealth University are taking pains to introduce Ellington classics to their student jazz-band players.

"It's one thing to learn Ellington while sitting at a desk" says Loren Schoenberg, who teaches an Ellington ensemble course; "it's another thing altogether when students have to address Ellingtonia through their instruments. We have varied the size of the ensemble from a handful of horns all the way up to a big band. The kids learn so much." At the University of North Texas, conductor David Joyner is preparing the student Jazz Repertory Ensemble to perform an all-Ellington concert this spring; and the band is issuing a CD, Rockin' in Rhythm, that highlights Ellington works.

And at the high school level, conductors such as Jim Doser of Penfield High School (New York) and Davey Yarborough of the Duke Ellington High School (Washington, D.C.) are introducing their students to the challenges and joys of Ellington's music. "Ellington serves as a great inspiration to me as a composer and performer," says Yarborough, "and to my students. He shows future artists what can come out of the community—and that you can excel if you really work at it. He inspires not just music students but students in the arts generally. How lucky they are to have him as a role model!"

Back in 1978, guitarist Kenny Burrell began teaching a course on Ellington's music at UCLA. Hundreds and hundreds of students have gone through his course. Since then, semester- (or quarter-) length Ellington courses have been introduced and taught by David Baker (Indiana University), David Berger (Manhattan School of Music), Anthony Davis (Harvard University), Larry Gushee (University of Illinois), Andrew Homzy (Concordia University), Andy Jaffe (Amherst College, Williams College), James McCalla (Bowdoin College), Matt McGarrell (Brown University), Herb Pomeroy (Berklee College of Music), Bill Russo (Columbia College-Chicago), Loren Schoenberg (The New School/Mannes College of Music), Mark Tucker (Yale University and Columbia University), and Richard Wang (University of Illinois-Chicago), among others.

In these courses, both students and professors feel enriched. "Spending a semester with Ellington is pure pleasure," says Mark Tucker, who has taught Ellington courses at several universities. "The richness and diversity of his music, the historical breadth, the vivid musical personalities in his band, the chance to explore issues of jazz reception and criticism—these factors have made the Ellington course I've offered one of my most rewarding experiences as a college teacher."

With the elite universities, colleges, and conservatories in the vanguard, other institutions of higher learning will no doubt follow. Eventually, I hope, Ellington courses will be as common as Beethoven courses in college and university music departments.

Ellington and The Smithsonian

The year after the Smithsonian acquired the Ellington collection, I wrote an article for the Jazz Educators Journal outlining our plans for the trove.1 Since then, what has the Smithsonian done with the Duke Ellington Collection and with the Ellington legacy?

First, a team of archivists has worked hard to organize this vast collection. It wasn't an easy task, especially cataloging the roughly 100,000 pages of music to the high standards of the Smithsonian Institution. When we acquired the collection, my colleagues and I found something of a mess: some band parts missing, some parts removed for performance by the Duke Ellington Orchestra under the direction of Mercer Ellington, other parts out of order. But the biggest challenges lay in identifying pieces. Some had no titles...or cryptic titles...or titles that were later changed. Or a piece of paper might contain fragments of several different pieces. Sometimes one piece would be written on one side of a page, another piece on the other. Or, instead of a dearth of information, there would be a surplus of music: for instance, the Ellington perennial Mood Indigo appears in more than a dozen different arrangements for the band.

With the aid of several outside consultants (including Mark Tucker and Andrew Homzy) and with the dedication of the archival staff (notably Deborra Ann Richardson and Ann K. Kuebler), the music was finally catalogued—down to the level of each piece of paper.

Meanwhile, the other half of the collection needed organizing. Archivists Reuben Jackson, Marilyn Graskowiak, and Scott Schwartz tackled the job of cataloging the estimated 100,000 pages of non-musical materials. Then in 1998, after years of intensive efforts, the staff completed cataloging the Duke Ellington Collection. Archivist Scott Schwartz placed the entire catalog on the World Wide Web, where it can be accessed 24 hours a day, from around the world (see sidebar). The level of detail the Smithsonian's Web site provides about the collection—especially the music—is unusual among library and archival collections and makes the Duke Ellington Collection extraordinarily accessible.

Another thrust of the Smithsonian's efforts was to make the Ellington Collection available for on-site research. Besides those individuals mentioned above, several young scholars have secured Smithsonian Fellowships to do research in the collection (see sidebar)—most notably the Dutch musicologist Walter Van de Leur, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on the music of Billy Strayhorn.

The Smithsonian has also disseminated the Ellington Collection through a series of museum exhibitions. The first, Duke Ellington, American Musician, was a very small exhibition (four cases of materials) intended to display a few items from the Collection. It opened on Ellington's 90th birthday, April 29, 1989, and continues to be seen on the Third Floor of the National Museum of American History.

If the first exhibition was tiny, the second was huge. Beyond Category: The Musical Genius of Duke Ellington opened in 1993 at the National Museum of American History and has traveled to New York, Orlando, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Memphis, New Orleans, Cleveland, Atlanta, and Kansas City. At a cost of $1.7 million and occupying 5000 square feet, this was the most ambitious exhibition ever mounted on an American musician. It featured handsome, painted backdrops depicting Ellington's Washington, New York of the 1920s, the Cotton Club, the Savoy Ballroom, his work in concert halls and cathedrals; choice photographs and artifacts from the Ellington Collection; and two exceptional, custom-designed video productions which earned a number of awards.

And it was the product of the most generous grant ever given for jazz: a $7 million undertaking called America's Jazz Heritage: A Partnership of the Lila Wallace—Reader's Digest Fund and the Smithsonian Institution (AJH). This ten-year series of traveling exhibitions, radio programs, concerts, and educational radio programs kicked off with the Beyond Category exhibition, organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). The exhibition's project director was SITES' Deborah Macanic; I served as exhibition curator.

Following the success of this exhibition, SITES/AJH secured the partnership of the American Library Association, which in turn secured funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities; and a smaller-scale version of Beyond Category was born, with project director Crisley McCarson overseeing the work. This version consists of 60 panels of text, photos, and graphics and exists in three identical copies. These "panel shows" have been circulating since 1995 to more than 60 libraries and smaller museums throughout the United States and Canada. During the spring of 1999, one of them will return to Ellington's hometown of Washington, D.C., where it will be seen at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (see sidebar).

The Smithsonian also has worked to spread information about Ellington to teachers and students. These efforts have taken four avenues. In 1990, the Smithsonian's Program in African-American Culture engaged music educator and ethnomusicologist Luvenia George and education specialist Maria Marable to research and develop a multidisciplinary curriculum for the study of Ellington based on the unique resources of the Ellington Collection at the National Museum of American History (see sidebar). Since that time, teachers of music, art, English, social studies, and foreign languages from throughout the city are brought together each fall to learn about Ellington and how best to use the curriculum in their classes in consideration of the current National Standards in Education. Many of their students do special projects inspired by Ellington; and the fruits of their labors come to public view each April, when the National Museum of American History hosts a Duke Ellington Youth Festival that includes music performance, poetry reading, and an art show. Luvenia George is currently Program Coordinator of the Duke Ellington Youth Project. Over twenty-five museums, educational organizations, and school systems nationwide have requested and received the original curriculum for study and possible implementation. Recently, schools in Chicago and Kansas City have begun implementing some aspects of the Duke Ellington Youth Project successfully pioneered by the Smithsonian.

The Museum has also produced an extensive teachers' kit and has collaborated with Cobblestone magazine, a history periodical aimed at students in grades 4 through 9 (see sidebar). Directed to student and professional musicians are three handsomely produced performing editions of Ellington's music in the series Jazz Masterworks Editions (also see sidebar).

Another way the Smithsonian presents Ellington to the public is through its resident big band, the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. This band was founded in 1990 with a Congressional appropriation to recognize the importance of jazz in American culture. Initially co-directed by David N. Baker and Gunther Schuller and now under the sole musical direction of Baker, this esteemed band has performed more than 100 of Ellington's works in Washington, D.C. and on tour. In 1999 the band is touring the nation with a program titled "Duke Ellington: A Centennial Tribute," featuring works both familiar and unfamiliar, including both stand-alone works and movements from the Ellington and Strayhorn suites. Besides its concerts for the general public, the band also does workshops, clinics, and classes for teachers and students; these programs typically include some Ellington and sometimes focus entirely on his and Strayhorn's music.

Maestro David N. Baker says, "As a composer, educator, and conductor, I feel that Ellington is central to every aspect of my life. He is one of a handful of musicians in any field who, during my lifetime, have transformed the aesthetic. We have his archives at the Smithsonian, and our band plays more Ellington than virtually any other band. That puts us in a unique position in the Ellington legacy."

A longtime friend of Ellington and Strayhorn, Lena Horne, serves as host of still another Smithsonian initiative with America's Jazz Heritage: the radio series Jazz Smithsonian. Heard on about 200 public radio stations, it has often featured the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra interpreting the music of Ellington.

Since 1973, when it first published The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz, the Smithsonian has also issued a distinguished series of historical jazz anthologies that have served to establish a jazz canon for teachers and students. Six of these—The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz, Big Band Jazz, Big Band Renaissance, Swing That Music, Jazz Piano, and The Jazz Singers— have included Ellington recordings. In 1994, Smithsonian Recordings issued an all-Ellington career retrospective, Beyond Category: The Musical Genius of Duke Ellington.

Finally, during the Ellington centennial year, the Smithsonian is collaborating on an Ellington Web site and a ten-week documentary radio series on Ellington (see sidebars). In all these ways, the nation's foremost museum and the world's largest museum complex seeks to preserve, interpret, and present the legacy of Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Johnny Hodges, Cootie Williams, and the other musicians who made the Ellington sound—oneof the century's most glorious bodies of creative art.

Endnote

1 "Duke Ellington: The Smithsonian Will Preserve and Perpetuate Duke Ellington's Legacy," IAJE Jazz Educators Journal, Fall 1989 issue.

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The Ellington Collection

The vast Duke Ellington Collection has now been fully processed by the staff of the Archives Center, National Museum of American History. The catalog is available on the World Wide Web at <www.si.edu/nmah/archives/d5301.htm>. This site has a description of the 16 types of material—ranging from music, newspaper clippings, recordings, business records, and photographs—contained in the collection. For detailed searching and access to the catalog record of the Ellington music, one is directed by the above Web site to <www.siris.si.edu>.

For those wishing to do research in the Collection, appointments are strongly recommended. Call (202) 357-3270. The hours of the Archives Center are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, 10-5; Wednesday 12-5. It is closed federal holidays.

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Smithsonian Fellowships

The Smithsonian's Office of Fellowships and Grants offers, on a competitive basis, research fellowships for graduate students and pre-doctoral students pursuing degree-related research, as well as post-doctoral fellowships. Topics may include Ellington. For an application, call 202/357-327l, visit the Web site at <www.si.edu/organiza/office/fellow>, or write the Office of Fellowships and Grants, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560-0902 USA.

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Traveling Exhibition

The itinerary of confirmed bookings for the 60-panel exhibition called Beyond Category: The Musical Genius of Duke Ellington is as follows:

February 1-April 30, 1999: John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC
February 20-April 18, 1999: Tulsa Community College, Southeast Campus, Tulsa, OK
April 29-July 4, 1999: Black World History Wax Museum, St. Louis, MO

For further information on this exhibition and its itinerary, go to the Web at <www.si.edu/sites/schedule/beyond2.htm>.

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Duke Ellington Curriculum Kit

The National Museum of American History's Division of Education and Visitor Services, in collaboration with the Program in African-American Culture, has produced a handsome and elaborate Duke Ellington curriculum kit aimed at teachers for grades 6 and up. Beyond Category: Duke Ellington Education Kit explores Ellington's life and music in the context of the social and cultural history of his times. Activities incorporate music, history, art, drama, creative expression, and language arts. It includes a 190-page Teachers Guide with thirty activities, black-and-white photo cards, four-color overhead transparencies of jazz-inspired art, facsimiles of two period newspapers, a four-color poster, and audio cassettes with Ellington recordings. Cost is $74.95. To order, call Cuisenaire/Dale Seymour Publications at 800/872-1100 (914/997-2600) or write P.O. 5026, White Plains, NY 10602-5026 USA. Ask for item number 31400. The Education Kit was supported in part by America's Jazz Heritage.

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Duke Ellington Youth Project

Visit the Web site for this initiative at <www.si.edu/nmah/csr/defy/cover.htm>. Program Coordinator Luvenia A. George can be e-mailed at <lgeorge@webtv.net>.

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Duke Ellington: Educational Magazine

Cobblestone: The History Magazine for Young People released a special issue on Duke Ellington in May 1993 for grades 4-9. It is available for $4.95 plus shipping by contacting Cobblestone Publishing, 7 School Street, Peterborough, NH 03458 USA; phone 800/821-0115 (603/924-7209); Web site <www.cobblestonepub.com>.

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Jazz Masterworks Editions

This national series of performing editions (Gunther Schuller, editor) has issued three classics of the Ellington orchestra: Daybreak Express (1933), Sepia Panorama (1940), and Take the "A" Train. Each handsomely designed publication includes engraved parts, bound conductor's score, an introductory essay, and editorial/performance notes. Prices for scores alone are $30; scores with parts are $50 each. Add $5 shipping for the first item, $2 for each additional item. Contact Jazz Masterworks Editions at 202/633-9164, fax 202/633-9176, or e-mail <Kimery@nmah.si.edu>.

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Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra

The Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra maintains a special interest in the music of Duke Ellington and is engaged in an ambitious centennial-year tribute series of concerts. For information on the band's concerts in Washington and on tour, call Smithsonian information: (202) 357-2700 or browse web information at <www.si.edu/nmah/music/index.htm>.

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Smithsonian Recordings

Smithsonian Recordings, in collaboration with BMG Music, has issued a boxed set of recordings that provides an overview of Ellington's musical career and recordings for his main record company, RCA: Beyond Category: The Musical Genius of Duke Ellington; His Greatest Victor, Bluebird, and RCA Recordings, 1927-1967. The set was produced and annotated by John Edward Hasse and includes a 28-page booklet. Ask in record stores for product #RJ0004 (CDs) or #RJ0003 (cassettes); or contact Smithsonian Recordings at P.O. Box 701, Holmes, PA 19043, USA; phone 800/863-9943 (610/532-4700), fax 610/586-9001, Web site <www.si.edu/youandsi/products/sipress/music/music2.htm>. (Note that Smithsonian recordings are not licensed for sale outside the United States.) A Beyond Category T-shirt is also available for $18 plus shipping; order number TJ0001.

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Ellington Radio Series

With support from America's Jazz Heritage: A Partnership of the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund and the Smithsonian Institution, Radio Smithsonian is producing a mini-series called Duke Ellington: A Centennial Birthday Tribute. This ten-week series will begin airing in April 1999 as part of the ongoing series Jazz Profiles (hosted by Nancy Wilson). Hours 1 and 2 will provide an overview of Ellington; hours 3 and 4 will cover Ellington the bandleader; hours 5 and 6: Ellington the composer; hour 7: Ellington the songwriter; hour 8: Ellington on film and stage; hour 9: Ellington the pianist; hour 10: Ellington's influence and legacy. The show will be carried on 160 NPR stations. Check with your local station for availability of this series or visit NPR's Web site at <www.npr.org>.

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Other Essential Ellington Resources

Books

Hajdu, David. Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1996. 306 pp., bibliography, discography. The first biography of Ellington's main collaborator is enriched by dozens of new interviews.

Hasse, John Edward. Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington. Foreword by Wynton Marsalis. New York: Simon &amp; Schuster, 1993. Reprint ed. New York: Da Capo, 1995. 478 pp. Intended to be a comprehensive introduction to the life and music of Ellington, this includes a number of appendices with helpful information (bibliography, discography, filmography, list of songbooks, etc.). Web site: <www.plenum.com>.

Tucker, Mark, ed. The Duke Ellington Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. 536 pp. This superb anthology includes more than 100 essays, reviews, interviews, and more than a dozen writings by Ellington. Web site: <www.oup.com>.

Recordings

Beyond Category: The Musical Genius of Duke Ellington; His Greatest Victor, Bluebird, and RCA Recordings, 1926-1966. See information provided in Smithsonian Recordings sidebar.

The Essential Ellington. CBS, 1990. This French import provides a good sampling of Ellington's recordings for Columbia, 1956-1960.

Reminiscing in Tempo. Columbia/Legacy, 1991. An essential survey of Ellington's recordings for the Columbia Records family of labels, it emphasizes material from the 1920s through the 1940s.

Music Folios

Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life. New Albany, IN: Jamey Aebersold Jazz, 1995. The play-along book (vol. 66. 61 pp.) is published with a recording (either CD or cassette tape). To order, contact Jamey Aebersold Jazz, Inc. P.O. Box 1244, New Albany, IN 47151-1244 USA. Or call 800/456-1388. Web site: <www.jajazz.com>.

Duke Ellington, American Composer. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Corp., 1995. 144 pp. To order, call 800/637-2852 (414/774/3630) or write Music Dispatch, P.O. Box 13920, Milwaukee, WI 53213 USA. Web site: <www.halleonard.com>.

Duke Ellington, Piano Solo Compilation Album "Hot." Paris: Editions Salabert, 1988. 182 pp. This anthology containing many hard-to-find pieces is not available to U.S. buyers but may be available in Europe.

The Great Music of Duke Ellington. Melville, NY: Belwin Mills Publishing Corp., 19[73], now distributed by Warner Bros. Publications, Miami. 143 pp. To order, call 800/327-7643 (or outside the USA and Canada, 44-181-550-0577) or write Note Service Music, 15800 Northwest 48th Avenue, P.O. Box 4340, Miami, FL 33014 USA. Web site: <warnerchappell.com>.

Lush Life: The Music of Billy Strayhorn. New York: Music Sales Corp., 1987. 56 pp. It includes Chelsea Bridge, Take the "A" Train, and other classics. To order, write Music Sales Corp., P.O. Box 572, Chester, NY 10918 USA. Or call 800/431-7187 (914/469-2271).

Big Band Transcriptions

Jazz at Lincoln Center/Warner Bros.

In addition to the three handsomely-produced Ellington charts published by Jazz Masterworks Editions (see sidebar), 20 of Jazz at Lincoln Center's Ellington transcriptions are available for purchase through Warner Bros. Publications. These editions are playable by high school bands and include Caravan, Rockin' in Rhythm, and Mood Indigo. To order, call Warner Bros. Publications at 800/327-7643 or visit its Web site: <www.warnerbrospublications.com>.

Billy Strayhorn Manuscript Editions

The estate of Billy Strayhorn has published more than 30 jazz-band editions of Strayhorn's music, prepared by the Dutch musicologist Walter Van de Leur. The editions include pieces recorded by the Duke Ellington Orchestra (Passion Flower, two different versions of Take the "A" Train, etc.) and pieces never recorded by Ellington (Bagatelle, Cashmere Cutie, and Le Sacre Supreme). To order, write Billy Strayhorn Manuscript Editions, P.O. Box 10285, Pittsburgh, PA 15232 USA; phone 800/209-9696 (412/681-3538); e-mail <gregory573@aol.com> (Dr. Gregory A. Morris); or visit the Web site <www.billystrayhorn.com/horn/editions.htm>.< ;/DIR>

High School Band Contest

Jazz at Lincoln Center operates an annual Essentially Ellington High School Band Competition and Festival. Participating schools are sent—free of charge—a group of Ellington big band transcriptions that are otherwise for sale through Warner Bros. Publications (see above). To register, contact Erika Fischer, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 212/875-5516, or visit the Web site <www.jazzatlincolncenter.org/prod/elli/index.html>.</ P>

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Ellington Conferences—Spring 1999

Throughout the Ellington centennial year, there will be concerts, tours, and other programs in the United States and abroad. Among the many notable events are the following conferences held between March and May, 1999:

Duke Ellington Centennial Symposium, Amherst, MA, March 4-6.

Speakers and performers include David Berger, Horace Clarence Boyer, Stanley Crouch, John Edward Hasse, Andrew Homzy, Herb Pomery, William Russo, Gunther Schuller, Frederick Tillis, Mark Tucker, as well as the Amherst Jazz Orchestra and the Amherst College Jazz Ensemble. The Program Chair is Prof. Andrew Jaffe. For a complete schedule of events, listing of available hotel accommodations, and to reserve space for each event, call the Concert Manager at Amherst College: Ellen Keel 413/542-2195 or 542-2199.

New Orleans International Music Colloquium: Duke Ellington and New Orleans, New Orleans, LA, April 9-11.

This event will be held at the Old U.S. Mint building—now part of the Louisiana State Museum—400 Esplanade Avenue, at the edge of the French Quarter. Speakers will include Richard B. Allen, John Edward Hasse, Don Marquis, Barry Martyn, Bruce Boyd Raeburn, Jack Stewart, Michael White, and others, examining Ellington and his connections with New Orleans. There will also be a ballet performance set to Ellington's New Orleans Suite. The Program Coordinator is Dr. Connie Atkinson, 504/895-7450.

Ellington '99, Washington, D.C., April 28-May 2.

The theme of the 1999 Conference will be his mother's words: "Edward, you are blessed," with emphasis on Ellington as Renaissance Man in American culture—composer, arranger, lyricist, orchestra leader, pianist, visual artist, dramatist, and philosopher. Several hundred Ellington scholars, musicians, collectors, and aficionados from around the world are expected to attend. Planned events include lectures, films, panel discussions, live music, and sessions at the Smithsonian Institution, repository of the Ellington Archives. It will be held at the Washington Marriott Hotel, 1221 22nd Street, N.W., within one block of Ellington's birthplace. The conference website is <nicom.com/~machare/ell/ell99.htm>. For further information or to register, write "Ellington '99," P.O. Box 42504, Washington, D.C. 20015-9998 USA; or e-mail conference coordinator Dr. Ben Pubols at <bhpubols@compuserve.com>.

Ellington Centennial Symposium at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, April 29-May 1.

Speakers include Louie Bellson, Bill Berry, Kenny Burrell, Buster Cooper, Luther Henderson, and Mark Tucker. The Program Coordinator is Prof. Kenny Burrell, 310/206-1044. For press inquiries, contact Diana de Cardenas at 310/206-1464.

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John Edward Hasse is Curator of American Music, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. and founder and Executive Director of the Smithsonian Jazz masterworks Orchestra. He is author of the biography Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington (Da Capo Press), editor of Ragtime: Its History, Composers, and Music, serves as a commentator for National Public Radio, and lectures widely on jazz and American music.

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