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Duke Ellington: Highlights Of His Twilight

Duke Ellington rehearses for a 1973 concert in London's Westminster Abbey.
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Duke Ellington rehearses for a 1973 concert in London's Westminster Abbey.

When Duke Ellington received the news that Billy Strayhorn, his songwriting and arranging partner of 28 years, had died, Ellington reportedly cried and told a friend, "No, I'm not all right! Nothing is going to be all right now."

The cancer-stricken Strayhorn passed away on May 31, 1967, and Ellington himself would follow seven years later, dying on May 24, 1974, at the age of 75. But the Duke did not go gently into the good night of his own mortality; he toured incessantly in the last years of his life and produced late-period masterpieces such as The New Orleans Suite and The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse. "Who's 70?" he said to a reporter who kept bringing up his age. "That's an awful weight to put on an up-and-coming man like me."

As his son Mercer Ellington later noted, Duke Ellington took Strayhorn's passing as an impetus, born of necessity, to increase his own productivity as a writer. His discography from 1967 to 1973 contains numerous points of interest, such as The River (written for an Alvin Ailey ballet), a duet date with bassist Ray Brown (This One's for Blanton) and a stellar piano-trio concert (Live at the Whitney). Here are five more glowing snapshots from the Ellingtonian twilight.

Copyright 2013 WFIU

David Brent Johnson
David Brent Johnson is the host of Afterglow and Night Lights. An Indianapolis native and IU alumnus, David began his radio career at Bloomington community radio station WFHB, where he hosted the weekly jazz program All That Jazz. A writer who’s published frequently in Bloom Magazine, The Ryder, the Bloomington Independent, and Indianapolis Nuvo, he has won two Society of Professional Journalists awards for his arts writing.