Talk:Duke Ellington

Birthdays
Has anyone else noticed that the abstract has April 29,1899, while the Early Life section has the day as April 15, 1879. That's wrong I believe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eplack (talk • contribs)


 * Actually, the 1879 date is his father's birth. I'm not sure why someone thought a biography of his parents belonged in the Early Life section.  I suppose that -20 is a tender age, but that's a little excessive. JordeeBec 16:24, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * P.S. Sign your posts on talk pages. JordeeBec

April 23, 1898 Farmhand23 (talk) 02:17, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Tributes or trivia
In recent months there have been multiple additions and removals of mention of a character in a Big_Mouth_(TV_series) who represents the ghost of Duke Ellington; this was most recently added to the Duke_Ellington section. The summary and outgoing links in Big_Mouth_(TV_series) seem sufficient, as they do for the series' other cultural reference points such as Statue of Liberty, Pablo Picasso. Neither for this article or any of these others does adding mention of this animation series impart any additional information about the subject of this article. AllyD (talk) 10:45, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Users who think adding a reference to Big Mouth might read "In popular culture" content: "In determining whether a reference is encyclopedic, one helpful test can be to look at whether a person who is familiar with the topic only through the reference in question has the potential to learn something meaningful about the topic from that work alone." The (possibly fictional) event of Ellington losing his virginity in 1913, as the Big Mouth article indicates, is not relevant to this article. Generally, it is not a life development which is included in biographies. Philip Cross (talk) 12:25, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Paradise Papers
added a sentence to the lead, stating "His name appeared in the Paradise Papers.". Judging from the article which that user included as a reference and here, what was in the Paradise Papers was "a cache of music publishing rights" which included those on "Day Dream", a 1939 Billy Strayhorn song on which Ellington sometimes has co-writing credits. The subsequent collateralisation of song rights for profit some 70 years later is of some interest, but is far from carrying sufficient importance to the biography of Ellington to be mentioned in the introductory overview - or, in my opinion, anywhere else in the article. I am reverting the addition but am happy to read others' views on whether it merits inclusion. AllyD (talk) 14:21, 11 August 2021 (UTC) (Already reverted by while I was writing.)


 * , the editor keen on mentioning the Paradise papers in this article has added the category to many other articles based on this list article with the possibility many individuals have limited or no direct connection to the issue as well. Philip Cross (talk) 14:37, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Missing biography
There should probably be some mention of Ellington biographer Stuart Nicholson (jazz historian) or better yet use of his biography on Ellington in this article.4meter4 (talk) 20:52, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Duke Ellington's obstacle
Description 2601:589:4900:7E40:4117:5C8A:47B0:F89 (talk) 00:38, 14 February 2024 (UTC)