Duke Ellington's page one New York Times obituary headline read "A Master of Music." There are few artists even in today's world of innumerable musical styles that would merit such a title. The man whose career lasted from 1918 into the 70s composed a staggering number of works and his arrangements led the way for all who came after him. Born April 29, 1899, in Washington, D.C., Edward Kennedy Ellington took piano lessons as a child, and during high school played at the True Reformers Hall. Records played an important role in Ellington's rise to fame; the first was made with his band, the Washingtonians, in New York in 1924. The crowning event came when he moved to Harlem's Cotton Club in 1927 and, for recording purposes, changed his band's name to the Cotton Club Orchestra. Major theater appearances (the Palace, the Paramount) followed, as did tours and the movies. Ellington was to compose over 2000 pieces of music, many of them exquisite three-minute miniatures required by the time limits of a 78-r.p.m. recording. His unique orchestrations for the particular talents of his musicians created what his longtime collaborator Billy Strayhorn called "the Ellington Effect." He continued to write longer works for concert performance, and ballet and Broadway shows expanded his horizons. With big bands in less demand after WW II, Ellington turned some of his enormous talent to writing film scores. THE ASPHALT JUNGLE appeared in1950 and the award-winning ANATOMY OF A MURDER in 1959. Unfazed by bebop in the 1940s, or progressive jazz a decade later, Duke Ellington continued to outcompose and outperform them all during his sixties and seventies. In 1973 he completed his autobiography, Music Is My Mistress. The following year he died of pneumonia and cancer in New York City.  Nominated for Music Scoring Awards (Scoring of a Musical Picture) 1961: PARIS BLUES 1 nomination