I was born in Maryland and spent my first thirty years living there, first in the Appalachian Mountains, then on the Eastern Shore, and later in suburban Washington. After a year in South Carolina, I moved to Georgia in 1977. I soon met another park ranger who worked in Florida. She was a wonderful woman who became my best friend. then my wife, and soon the mother of our three children. I spent over eleven years working in the historic city of Savannah, Georgia, and on the moss-draped sea islands nearby before moving to Atlanta.. In 2007, I retired from the National Park Service and a career dedicated to preserving and interpreting resources and themes in the cultural and natural history of the United States. It was a most rewarding experience. Today, I enjoy living in the rolling hills and woods of the Appalachian Piedmont east of Atlanta.
Commemorating The American Music Master, Duke Ellington
Smooth, high brow, faultless, sophisticated, American. All of these words describe the music that came out of the world of Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington as a composer, performer, and conductor. For fifty years he defined jazz in his own way with his superbly talented jazz orchestra, surviving the onslaught of bebop, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll. His discography includes over seventy hit records out of hundreds of releases spanning seven decades.
Ellington was born on this day in Washington, D. C., in 1899. He formed a band while in his teens and played the circuit in and around the nation's capital before moving to New York. There, his creative fervor and gentlemanly demeanor made him an influential force in the Harlem Renaissance. He was a star much appreciated in Europe as well as the United States by the mid '30s. His collaboration with the brilliant composer and arranger, Billy Strayhorn, later in that decade and again in the '60s enhanced his fame and helped him bridge gaps between jazz and other musical genres. Ellington passed away over forty years ago and with his passing the nation lost both a legendary technician at the piano and its strongest advocate for the American musical invention called jazz. To learn more about this extraordinary entertainer visit the Official Website of Jazz Legend Duke Ellington. In addition, The Duke Ellington Society website is another excellent information source, including the significant story of the contributions of Billy Strayhorn. As it so happens this year Ellington's birthday coincides with the full Pink Moon that's rising over the East Coast about now. That's a perfect setting for enjoying a few of his compositions about the moon and the moods it elicits in the hands of a music master.
If your sky dome permits, after the Pink Moon rises you can turn around and enjoy the planet Venus low in the western sky. If you're awake around midnight go outside and enjoy Jupiter rising in the east. And just in case you're wondering, although nature was a frequent subject, Ellington never wrote a song about the planets.
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