Life Of A Wonderful Musician
...moved to Washington, D.C. in 1886 with his parents. Daisy Kennedy, was born in Washington, D.C. on January 4, 1879, and was the daughter of a former slave. J.E. made blueprints for the United States Navy; he was a butler for Dr. Middleton F. Cuthbert, a prominent white physician, and he also worked occasionally as a White House caterer. Daisy and J.E. were both piano players, she playing parlor songs and he operatic airs, and at the age of seven Ellington began taking piano lessons from Mrs. Marietta Clinkscales who lived at 1212 Street NW. The Clinkscales address is often, but erroneously, given as Ellington's childhood home. Daisy surrounded her son with dignified women who reinforced his manners and taught him to live elegantly. From his father, he absorbed self-confidence. Ellington’s childhood friends noticed that his casual, offhand manner, his easy grace, and his dapper dress gave him the bearing of a young nobleman , and began calling him Duke. Ellington credited his chum Edgar McEntree, a sharp dresser himself, with the nickname. I think he felt that in order for me to be eligible for his constant companionship, I should have a title. So he called me Duke. Ellington received his name from childhood friends because he always dressed very elegantly and he also had a very aristocratic manner.
Though Ellington had been taking piano lessons from the age of eight, he failed to show much interest in them. At that time he was more concerned with baseball. President Roosevelt (Teddy) would come by on his horse sometimes, and stop and watch us play, he recalled.[8] Ellington went to Armstrong High School in Washington, D.C.. He got his first job selling peanuts at Washington Senator’s baseball games where he conquered his stage fright. Then, in the summer of 1914, while working as a soda jerk at the Poodle Dog Café he wrote his first composition,...
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