Duke Ellington: 125 Years Young

April 29 marked the 125th anniversary of Duke Ellington's birth in 1899. Catching the Ellington bug over the weekend, I figured what better way to kick off the week than with seven celebratory video clips and a bonus album [photo above of Duke Ellington in London in 1963 by John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins]:

Here's Ellington conducting the Dick Cavett band on August 8, 1969. Bill Kirchner sent this one along. The band included Duke Ellington (p);  George Duvivier (b); Bobby Rosengarden (d,leader); Joe Wilder and Ernie Royal (tp); Boomie Richman (b-cl,ts); Harvey Estrin (lead as). One guitar, three other reeds, two other trumpets and three trombones unidentified...

Here's an hour and a half documentary on Ellington from 1991...

Here's another, A Duke Named Ellington, from PBS in 1988...

Here's a 23-minute Twentieth Century episode hosted by Walter Cronkite on Duke Ellington's 1964 trip to Japan...

Here's Ellington and Louis Armstrong on The Ed Sullivan Show in December 1961...

Here's the 1967 documentary On the Road With Duke Ellington, directed by Robert Drew...

And here's Ralph J. Gleason's Love You Madly, an hour-long TV documentary from 1965...

Bonus: Here's one of my favorite Ellington albums, Unknown Session. It was recorded in 1960 but not released by Columbia until 1979...

The ensemble:

• Duke Ellington – piano
• Ray Nance - trumpet
• Lawrence Brown - trombone
• Johnny Hodges - alto saxophone
• Paul Gonsalves - tenor saxophone
• Harry Carney - baritone saxophone
• Aaron Bell - bass
• Sam Woodyard - drums

The tracks:

1. Everything But You"
2. Black Beauty
3. All Too Soon
4. Something to Live For
5. Mood Indigo
6. Creole Blues
7. Don't You Know I Care (Or Don't You Care to Know)
8. A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing
9. Mighty Like the Blues
10. Tonight I Shall Sleep (With a Smile on My Face)
11. Dual Highway
12. Blues