When I was in grad school I joined some undergrads and went to a Duke Ellington festival in L.A. The late Chuck Niles, who was the master DJ at the major jazz radio station, was the MC. Kicking the thing off, he quoted some jazz muscian to the effect that the Duke was "our commander in chief." A lot of jazz fans still have the same loyalty to Ellington that civic piety often inspires toward a king or President. For that reason, it is dangerous to suggest that the Duke might not have been all that he appeared to be.
I have been thinking about the Independent Lens show on Billy Strayhorn. When Ken Burns did his series on jazz, Duke Ellington is presented as a great jazz hero, while Billy Strayhorn is mentioned only in passing, as a "collaborator." But the truth is that Ellington got his name on a lot of music that he did not write. He was a very busy man, but one of his favorite strategies was to wait until the last minute to finish music for some project, and then to call Strayhorn in to finish it for him. It wasn't as if Duke himself didn't have any ideas, he was just too busy touring. But Ellington knew that Strayhorn would always come through.
Billy Strayhorn was, or could have been, the American Mozart. Without Duke Ellington, Strayhorn might never have done anything. But there is no doubt that Ellington kept him caged, as a secret weapon. A lot of commentators think that Strayhorn's homosexuality kept him back, but I doubt that many people outside of their inner circle knew about it. Duke was a master of the public world of music. Strayhorn was musical genius in itself.
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