Welcome to the Duke Ellington Legacy Site

The Duke Ellington Legacy Band is all about keeping the legacy of Duke Ellington alive.  It is a band headed by Edward K. Ellington II, grandson of the jazz legend.  This web site gives you the biographies of the band and its members, as well the band's educational contributions involved in the musician-in-residence program at the Moses Brown School in Providence, Rhode Island.  There's an itinerary section showing the upcoming performances of the band, as well as short music snippets to review.

To give you a historic background to this legacy, we need to examine the life of Duke Ellington.   There are numerous sites providing biographical information of Duke Ellington - most notably the official site.  There are also numerous web sites that not only cover biographical information, but summarize the phases of his musical styles as well as his numerous record productions and performances.  More notably, TDES, Inc., or the Duke Ellington Society, provides a web site to promote a deeper understanding and appreciation of his music.

Even though Duke Ellington was a gifted piano player, his orchestra was his primary instrument.   He was in many ways like his predecessor, Jelly Roll Morton, who considered himself to be a composer and arranger before being just a musician.  The brilliance of Ellington's work is his ability to justapose a myriad of musical forms into his music - from ragtime, the blues and Tin Pan Alley tunes, minstrel songs as well as European influences.  Though his arrangements were complex, his music was simple and direct.  His compositions were phenomenal conceptions of form, harmony and melodies that not only soothed the soul but was timeless in every way.

Tune into to your local public broadcasting station for their showing of Ken Burns documentary of Jazz.   His documentary provides with an in-depth and comprehensive look at the history of jazz, as well as coverage of its major contributors.  In the meantime, this pbs link provides you with fascinating profile of Duke Ellington by Nancy Wilson.