Duke Ellington (1899-1974) was an American composer, pianist and bandleader, one of the giants of twentieth-century music. His orchestra became a unique instrument, shaped around the personalities and colours of its players.

In the Pristine catalogue he appears in Carnegie Hall performances from the 1940s, preserving the Ellington band in large-scale concert settings.

Ellington’s music fused jazz, blues, popular song, orchestral colour and formal ambition with unmatched individuality. He wrote not just for instruments, but for human sounds he knew intimately.

His importance cannot be confined to jazz alone. Ellington made American music speak in velvet, brass, smoke and moonlit architecture.