# 4336 - 2008 42c Vintage Black Cinema: Black and Tan
Black and Tan
Vintage Black Cinema
City: Newark, NJ
Birth Of Duke Ellington
Ellington’s mother surrounded him with dignified women and taught him proper manners and how to live elegantly. Ellington’s friends thought, “his casual, offhand manner, his easy grace, and his dapper dress gave him the bearing of a young nobleman” and nicknamed him “Duke.”
Duke began playing piano at seven, but was more interested in baseball. In fact, President Theodore Roosevelt would occasionally come by on his horse and watch Ellington and the other children play. Ellington then began working selling peanuts at the Washington Senators baseball games and later as a “soda jerk” in the Poodle Dog Café. It was during this time that he wrote his first song, “Soda Fountain Rag” or “Poodle Dog Rag.” He didn’t yet know how to read music, so he created the song by ear and would play it as a one-step, two-step, waltz, tango, or fox trot, so people didn’t usually know it was the same song.
For many years Ellington sought to move jazz music beyond the standard three-minute limit. While he had composed some longer pieces over the years, he began to include many more of them in the early 1940s. The first of these was “Black, Brown, and Beige,” which he debuted at Carnegie Hall in 1943. He would continue to perform there every year for the next four years. However, his longer songs weren’t as well received as his shorter tunes.
After World War II the music scene changed drastically and clubs didn’t want to pay big bands like Ellington’s. Though he had a successful European tour and preformed for President Harry Truman, his career had hit a lull. But then he enjoyed a resurgence in popularity when he appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956. That performance made international news and Ellington was featured on the cover of Time magazine. This also led to the recording of a new album (Ellington at Newport), which would be the best selling of his career.
Click here for some Duke Ellington videos.
Black and Tan
Vintage Black Cinema
City: Newark, NJ
Birth Of Duke Ellington
Ellington’s mother surrounded him with dignified women and taught him proper manners and how to live elegantly. Ellington’s friends thought, “his casual, offhand manner, his easy grace, and his dapper dress gave him the bearing of a young nobleman” and nicknamed him “Duke.”
Duke began playing piano at seven, but was more interested in baseball. In fact, President Theodore Roosevelt would occasionally come by on his horse and watch Ellington and the other children play. Ellington then began working selling peanuts at the Washington Senators baseball games and later as a “soda jerk” in the Poodle Dog Café. It was during this time that he wrote his first song, “Soda Fountain Rag” or “Poodle Dog Rag.” He didn’t yet know how to read music, so he created the song by ear and would play it as a one-step, two-step, waltz, tango, or fox trot, so people didn’t usually know it was the same song.
For many years Ellington sought to move jazz music beyond the standard three-minute limit. While he had composed some longer pieces over the years, he began to include many more of them in the early 1940s. The first of these was “Black, Brown, and Beige,” which he debuted at Carnegie Hall in 1943. He would continue to perform there every year for the next four years. However, his longer songs weren’t as well received as his shorter tunes.
After World War II the music scene changed drastically and clubs didn’t want to pay big bands like Ellington’s. Though he had a successful European tour and preformed for President Harry Truman, his career had hit a lull. But then he enjoyed a resurgence in popularity when he appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956. That performance made international news and Ellington was featured on the cover of Time magazine. This also led to the recording of a new album (Ellington at Newport), which would be the best selling of his career.
Click here for some Duke Ellington videos.