Jazz was one of the influential aspects that African-American relied on, to escape reality, express their feelings, or just have fun. Jazz began to flourish during the 1920's, which in turn came to be known as the Golden Age of Jazz. During this time of jazz one of the famous ones that became a great jazz musician was Edward Kennedy Ellington famously known as Duke Ellington. Duke Ellington of course had achievements and down falls like any other person. He was not afraid to follow his creative instincts wherever they took him, no matter what people said. He remarks one time in an interview, "Life itself is one big, long soap opera." There were even times when things looked bleak, but at the end he never quit.
             Duke Ellington was born on April 29, 1899, in Washington D.C. As soon as he started to grow up, his parents right away showed him their love for music. His parents had a teacher start giving him piano lessons. Duke Ellington, like all other children at his age, was interested in other things, like baseball, for example. But later as he moved on to his teen years he began once again to get interested and began to learn the piano. He would hang out at a pool hall where his friends were his best. The pool hall was next to the Howard Theater, where most of the major black entertainers in America would hang out. Some of them would drop by the pool hall to relax when they weren't on stage. There was two people that had a great influence in his musical education and they were Doc Perry and Louis Brown, both pianists who were usually always at the pool hall. Ellington really liked their approach for different styles of playing. This was the way that he first learned and liked to play music. Ellington would learn how to play music just by listening and pay close attention to the music. In 1919, Ellington met Sonny Greer, a drummer who was already starting to play with musicians. He had also met Tob...