Introduction Jazz music is an example of popular hybrid music. This is because it consists of both African and European musical cultures. Jazz music was first developed in 20 th century. It was most popular among the black community of southern America. Duke Ellington was known widely to be one of the greatest composer and musician of jazz music in the 20 th century. He is the jazz musician discussed in this paper. Duke Ellington life history Duke Ellington was born in April 1899. His father was called James Edward Ellington (Allmusic par. 2). Young Ellington was lucky since his father was employed at the white house as a butler. This had a great impact on his life since he grew up comfortably. Despite the fact that he lived among the middle class community, Ellington had access to musical instruments at a tender age of seven. He engaged himself in piano classes despite racism being very high during that time. The music classes became too sweet for young Ellington. This made him to drop out of school while he was still in junior class. He wanted to pursue his music career. Notable to mention is that, Ellington started music composition at his teen age. The first stage performance for Ellington was in 1917. He performed with a band based in Washington DC. Nevertheless, things did not progress smoothly for the band. They decided to relocate to New York permanently. It was in New York where the band recorded their first album in 1924. Duke Ellington was among them. Ellington stunning role in the band earned him the top leadership position. The band grew bigger and popular with time. In the year 1927, Ellington and his band moved again and resided in one of the most famous club in New York. This club was called cotton club. Their relocation to this club made the group more popular in the entire country. For three years the band resided at the cotton club under Ellington leadership (Allmusic par. 4). By the end of 1928, the band had produced a hit song called Diga Diga Doo (Allmusic par. 4). This song elevated the band to top position nationally since they became more famous. In addition to that, the band was frequently advertized in radio countrywide and this made them even more popular. In spite of his job at the cotton club, Ellington and his band still participated in several orchestral stage shows. In the year 1929, the band appeared in the California film show. Their fame doubled when they won and became the best band. This progressive success of Ellington accelerated more when he released a top five hit instrumental type of music. This song was called mood indigo (Allmusic par. 5). Ellington left the cotton club in the year 1931 and started musical tour around the country. Immediately Ellington left the cotton club, he composed a second version of previous music he had developed. He called it, the Lime house blues (Allmusic par. 6). This song elevated Ellington to a senior music position nationally. This is because the song was ranked top ten hit music nationally. Ellington also invited other musicians and featured them in his band. He also featured Ivie Anderson who was a violinist in his hit song called it do not mean a thing (Allmusic par. 5). In the year 1934, Ellington advanced forward and was featured in another film famously known as