Edward Kennedy 'Duke' Ellington led his orchestra for nearly fifty years, from the Cotton Club revues of the late 1920s through the concert halls of the 1970s, treating the big band itself as his instrument and composing with the specific voices of his musicians in mind. Works like 'Mood Indigo' and 'Take the A Train' (the latter written by longtime collaborator Billy Strayhorn) helped establish jazz composition as a serious American art form, and critics have called him the most important composer the country produced.

the sound in question

1941

Take the A TrainDuke Ellington