Duke Ellington › Similar Artists

Charlie Parker - 92% match to Duke Ellington

Charles Christopher Parker, 29 August 1920, Kansas City, Kansas, USA, d. 12 March 1955, New York City, New York, USA. Although he was born on the Kansas side of the state line, Parker was actually raised across the Kaw River in Kansas City, Missouri. His nickname was originally ‘Yardbird’ due to his propensity for eating fried chicken - later this was shortened to Read more

Thelonious Monk - 87% match to Duke Ellington

Thelonious Sphere Monk, 11 October 1917, Rocky Mount, North Carolina, USA, d. 17 February 1982, Weehawken, New Jersey, USA. Monk’s family moved to New York when he was five years old. He started playing piano a year later, receiving formal tuition from the age of 11 onwards. At Stuyvesant High School he excelled at physics and maths, and also found time to play organ in Read more

Charles Mingus - 81% match to Duke Ellington

Benny Goodman - 79% match to Duke Ellington

Benjamin David Goodman, 30 May 1909, Chicago, Illinois, USA, d. 20 June 1986, New York City, New York, USA. Born into a large, impoverished family of immigrants, Goodman experienced hard times while growing up. Encouraged by his father to learn a musical instrument, Goodman and two of his brothers took lessons; as the youngest and smallest he learned to play the clarinet. Th Read more

Louis Armstrong - 78% match to Duke Ellington

4 August 1901, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, d. 6 July 1971, New York City, New York, USA. It is impossible to overstate Louis ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong’s importance in jazz, as he was one of the most influential artists in the music’s history. He was also more than just a jazz musician, he was an enormously popular entertainer (a facet upon which some critics f Read more

Dizzy Gillespie - 74% match to Duke Ellington

John Birks Gillespie, 21 October 1917, Cheraw, South Carolina, USA, d. 6 January 1993, Englewood, New Jersey, USA. Born into a large family, Gillespie began playing trombone at the age of 12 and a year or so later took up the trumpet. Largely self-taught, he won a musical scholarship but preferred playing music to formal study. In 1935 he quit university and went to live in Read more

Miles Davis - 74% match to Duke Ellington

Miles Dewy Davis, 25 May 1926, Alton, Illinois, USA, d. 28 September 1991, Santa Monica, California, USA. Davis was born into a comparatively wealthy middle-class family and both his mother and sister were capable musicians. He was given a trumpet for his thirteenth birthday by his dentist father, who could not have conceived that his gift would set his son on the road to be Read more

John Coltrane - 67% match to Duke Ellington

John William Coltrane, 23 September 1926, Hamlet, North Carolina, USA, d. 17 July 1967, New York, USA. Coltrane grew up in the house of his maternal grandfather, Rev. William Blair (who gave him his middle name), a preacher and community spokesman. While he was taking clarinet lessons at school, his school band leader suggested his mother buy him an alto saxophone. In 1939 h Read more

Coleman Hawkins - 64% match to Duke Ellington

Coleman Randolph Hawkins, 21 November 1904, St. Joseph, Missouri, USA, d. 19 May 1969, New York City, New York, USA. Coleman Hawkins (aka ‘Bean’ and ‘Hawk’) is a colossus of the tenor saxophone, and hence of jazz. He was the first to use the instrument as a serious means of expression and continued to be open to new developments for 40 years. Starting pia Read more

Johnny Hodges - 57% match to Duke Ellington

John Cornelius Hodge, 25 July 1907, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, d. 11 May 1970, New York City, New York, USA. One of the greatest alto saxophonists in jazz, Hodges first tried other instruments before settling upon the one that would best serve his glorious romanticism. Largely self-taught, Hodges played in a number of minor bands in Boston and New York in the early 20s b Read more

Lester Young - 56% match to Duke Ellington

Lester Willis Young, 27 August 1909, Woodville, Mississippi, USA, d. 15 March 1959, New York City, New York, USA. Born into a musical family, Young was taught several instruments by his father. As a child he played drums in the family’s band, but around 1928 he quit the group and switched to tenor saxophone. His first engagements on this instrument were with Art Bronson Read more

Sonny Rollins - 55% match to Duke Ellington

Theodore Walter Rollins, 7 September 1929, New York City, New York, USA. Although an older brother played violin and, at the age of nine, he took piano lessons, Rollins was destined for the saxophone. In 1944 he played alto saxophone in high school and when he left in 1947 he began gigging round New York on tenor. His first inspiration was Coleman Hawkins, but he was well aw Read more

Bud Powell - 54% match to Duke Ellington

Earl Rudolph Powell, 27 September 1924, Harlem, New York City, New York, USA, d. 31 July 1966, New York City, New York, USA. After learning to play the piano in the classical tradition while still a child, Powell began working around New York’s Coney Island, where he played in a band featuring Valaida Snow around 1940. During the next couple of years he became a regular Read more

Fats Waller - 54% match to Duke Ellington

Thomas Wright Waller, 21 May 1904, Waverley, New York, USA, d. 15 December 1943, Kansas City, Missouri, USA. Influenced by his grandfather, a violinist, and his mother, Waller was playing piano at students’ concerts and organ in his father’s church by the time he was 10 years old. In 1918, while still in high school, he was asked to fill in for the regular organist Read more

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - 49% match to Duke Ellington