He also wrote many extended works, of which Black, Brown and Beige is the crowning achievement. Portrait of the Lion and Bojangles were written to portray actual people. Also his Harlem Air Shaft was a musical portrayal of the sights and sounds in a Harlem air shaft. That space formed in the center of four tenements in Harlem. He also wrote several movie scores which his band performed.
Blues are all excellent.
An excellent example of this is East St. Louis Toodle-Oo. An integral part of composing is in the orchestration. Ellington was a master. The normal arranging style, developed by Fletcher Henderson and put to good use with his arrangements by the Benny Goodman Orchestra, was to pit one section against another. Musically, of course.