When did duke ellington die?

Equally at home and equally revered in the Cotton Club and Carnegie Hall, if any musician ever defied categorization, it was Duke Ellington. Fifty years after becoming a household name, and without slowing down professionally until the very end, Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington died on May 24, 1974, at the age of 75. read more

Charles Mingus, who had been fired by Ellington decades earlier, wrote the elegy "Duke Ellington's Sound Of Love" in 1974, a few months after Ellington's death. Stevie Wonder wrote the song "Sir Duke" as a tribute to Ellington in 1976. read more

At the age of 19, Ellington married Edna Thompson, who had been his girlfriend since high school, and soon after their marriage, she gave birth to their only child, Mercer Kennedy Ellington. On May 24, 1974, at the age of 75, Duke Ellington died of lung cancer and pneumonia. read more