I stand on the train platform. Cold, gray weather presses down. Dystopian headlines fill the news; angst-inducing messages shake my phone. But ignoring it all, I tap my toe and bop my head. The music ...

There are rare insights into Duke Ellington in this book from Jack Chambers, his second on Duke Ellington. Chambers has also written important books on Miles Davis and Richard Twardzik. He is ...

How a Refuge on Rails Inspired Jazz Classics For Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Louis Armstrong, even their fame couldn’t fully protect them from the terrifying violence of Jim Crow. But the railroad ...

“Sophisticated Ladies” is an all-singing, all-dancing romp through Duke Ellington’s enduring songs, including “Take the ‘A’ Train,” “Caravan,” “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” and ...

Ever since he was a boy, Duke Ellington loved train travel. It excited him, fed his creativity, and gave him space to compose. It led him to write one of his most iconic pieces, a sensation from 1933, ...

“Take the A Train,” Duke Ellington tells us in the title of his signature jazz song. In the New York City subway system, there is no train line quite like it. The New York Times deems the A “less of a ...

To call Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington inimitable is to actually downplay his mythic role in world culture, as no American figure — be he from the realm of jazz or any other musical idiom — has ever ...

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Late jazz luminary Duke Ellington graced the Billboard 200 album chart for the first time in 41 years this week. "Best of Duke Ellington" opened at No. 186, marking the ...

There are times when Duke Ellington exudes such calm contentment that a colleague, under the influence of the benign radiation, once murmured drowsily, “Duke make me sleepy, like rain on the roof.” ...

Together they composed many short and long instrumental works, and Strayhorn contributed dozens of pieces to the Ellington band’s repertory, including "Take the 'A' Train" (1941), which became ...