The best album ever made by Duke Ellington—which is to say, one of the best albums in jazz—is also one of his least-known. It attracted scant attention upon its release, in 1951, and no particular ...

San Francisco bandleader, composer, bassist and educator Marcus Shelby never gets tired of performing Duke Ellington's jazzy ...

Duke Ellington, one of the greatest figures of jazz, died 50 years ago today. The highest form of praise he would apply to others was to call them ‘beyond category’, and Ellington’s own New York Times ...

Duke Ellington had international appeal. Here he performs in West Germany. All photos courtesy of the Duke Ellington Collection, Archives Center at the American History Museum Jazz trumpeter Wynton ...

The scope and breadth of Duke Ellington's compositions were far-reaching, drawing many influences together to create a cohesive and diverse sound.... Duke Ellington: The Composer, Pt. 2 Duke Ellington ...

I stand on the train platform. Cold, gray weather presses down. Dystopian headlines fill the news; angst-inducing messages shake my phone. But ignoring it all, I tap my toe and bop my head. The music ...

Duke Ellington didn't consider himself a jazz musician. He said he was a musician who played jazz. And what a musician: pianist, bandleader, composer of more than 1,000 songs including standards like ...

To the thousands who enjoyed numbers like Satin Doll, Mood Indigo and Sophisticated Lady, he was the languid maestro who used the royal “we” when he assured his audiences that “We do love you madly.” ...

In July 1970, Duke Ellington recorded two tunes engineered by Conny Plank. Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead says The Conny Plank Session, which is now on CD, is a window onto Ellington's working method.

correctionAn earlier version of this feature incorrectly said that one of the D.C. houses in which Duke Ellington lived, at 1955 Third St. NW, had been replaced by Howard University’s Diggs Slowe Hall ...