Duke Ellington - Edward Kennedy Duke Ellington (April 29 1899 May 24 1974) was an American composer pianist and bandleader of jazz orchestras. His career spanned over 50 years leading his orchestra from 1923 until he died.Though widely considered to have been a pivotal figure in the history of jazz Ellington himself embraced the phrase beyond category as a liberating principle and referred his music to the more general category of American Music rather than to a musical genre such as jazz. Given a choice of categories company, educational institution, artist, athlete, office holder, mean of transportation, building, natural place, village, animal, plant, album, film or written work, the text refers to which one?
Artist