Duke Ellington vs. Howard Gardner: A Study of Creativity
Julie VW
SMU
Cultural Studies AA 610
April 14, 2003
What is creativity? Can a dull person learn to be creative? What makes a creative person tick? Can creativity be encouraged or inspired? Are there characteristics common to all creative individuals? Is it possible to measure or grade creativity?
In an attempt to answer the elusive questions of creativity, Harvard professor Howard Gardner (1993) studied the works and lives of seven creative individuals. Using common and recurring themes from these biographies he constructed a "Portrait of the Exemplary Creator" and devised his own personal model of creativity (p. 360).
Gardner defines a creative individual as "a person who regularly solves problems, fashions products or defines new questions in a domain in a way that is initially considered novel but that ultimately becomes accepted in a particular cultural setting." (p. 35). Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington serves as an excellent figure to apply and examine Gardner's "Theory of Creativity." As one who solved problems on a regular basis, (once saying "My biggest kick in music - playing or writing - is when I have a problem. Without a problem to solve, how much interest do you take in anything?) (Duke Ellington n.d.) composed prolifically, (with hundreds of compositions attributed to him) and received honors from three countries, (including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Nixon) Ellington meets Gardner's definition of a creative individual.
Life and 10 Year Creative Patterns
In 1923 Ellington's little band The Washingtonians began to play regular gigs on the east coast. The group played social dance music as well as compositions by Ellington. 10 years later, under the new name, Duke Ellington and His Famous Orchestra, the musicians won the title of "Top Band in the Country." In 1933 Ellington also wrote two of his most famous songs, In My Solitude and In a Sentimental Mood. In 1943, 10 years after his initial breakthrough, Ellington premiered one of his finest works at Carnegie Hall, Black, Brown, and Beige.
The decade of time between Duke's creative breakthroughs follows a patterned noted by Gardner (1993) in his study of creative individuals, where "important events and breakthroughs occurred at approximately ten-year intervals" after 10 years of intensive study in a discipline (p 370). I believe Ellington's third major breakthrough occurred in 1965 when he presented the first of three sacred concerts. Gardner's "Ten Year Rule" of creative patterns does not fit with Ellington's third masterpiece, but many creators in his study experienced a similar dry spell of creativity in their older years.
Intellectual Strengths and Weaknesses
Gardner does not believe an I.Q. test accurately reflects a person's mental aptitude. Instead he advocates a theory that all people possess at least seven distinct intelligences (1993 p. 8). One can easily classify people according to Gardner's Intelligence Theory. A great poet obviously displays verbal intelligence. A sports star possesses kinesthetic intelligence, and (we hope) an expensive financial planner exhibits strong mathematical intelligence. As a famous musician, Duke Ellington logically fits into the musical intelligence category. However, I believe Ellington's musical success stems from a strong interpersonal, not musical, intelligence. Ellington himself did not think of himself a world class musician, and once said, "I wasn't able to play what other composers wrote, so I had to create something that I could play. I remain a primitive artist, extremely primitive" (Woog, 1996 p. 19). Even as a child, Ellington preferred baseball to music and only endured piano lessons because of the instrument's interpersonal potential to attract girls! Ken Burns (2000) described him as a man who "moved effortlessly among worlds" regardless of race, wealth, age or social class. As a black man living in the reality of a segregated and often racist country, the ability to charm and smoochze all types of people allowed Ellington to make the connections he needed to earn a reputation as one of America's finest composers and bandleaders.
"For all of his up front gregariousness," John Harmond said, Ellington "was a very private person." (Woog, p. 31). I believe Ellington's intellectual strengths were offset by a weak intrapersonal intelligence, the ability to understand one's own feelings and emotions. His wife Edna called him a "lonely man" who masked his emotions. Throughout his life, Ellington succumbed to depression and had difficulty maintaining long term relationships with his wives.
Relationships
Every creator in the Gardner model has two significant relationships. The first is a parent relationship, although a nanny or nurse often serves as a surrogate in the in a close, loving parent-child relationship. The second important relationship requires someone who can understand the medium of the creation and provide feedback. "Without the kind of stimulation and critique offered by a trusted friend and lover," Gardner writes, "these men might never have completed their innovative work." (1993, p. 103).
Parent Relationship and Support
Duke's mother, Daisy Ellington lived a life totally devoted to her son. Ellington, in return, was a son totally devoted to his mother. Duke opens his memoirs with the lines "No one else but my sister Ruth has a mother as great and as beautiful as mine" (Tucker, 1993, p.3). Like Gardner's other exemplary creators, Ellington's family called him special and blessed. Ellington believed all of it only because his mother told him, and, in his words, "Anything she told me was true" (Tucker, 1993 p. 8).
The death of his mother in 1935 devastated Ellington. To honor Daisy, Duke ordered 3,000 flowers and a $3,500 casket. (Wong, 1996 p. 54). For the rest of his life, Ellington hated the color brown because he wore a brown suit the day his mother died. After the death of his mother, Duke went into a deep depression and relapsed two years later with the death of his father.
Billy Strayhorn
Many biographers declare the 1940's as Duke's greatest decade. Adam Woog (1996) attributes this success to Billy Strayhorn's contributions to the Ellington and the band. Originally hired as a lyricist, Strayhorn became Ellington's closest collaborator and confidant(p. 61).
The two men were total opposites. Ellington enjoyed a reputation for chasing women, while Strayhorn lived as a homosexual. Ellington's handsome, tall, and heavy statue directly contrasted with Strayhorn's short thin, and unattractive appearance. While Duke had an excellent relationship with his parents, Strayhorn came from a troubled family and often looked to Ellington as a father figure(Woog, 1996 p. 63).
Ellington and Stayhorn worked together closely, composing music with almost telepathic like connections. In 1959 the band needed to write a new composition for the Great South Bay Jazz Festival. Ellington and Strayhorn discussed the piece over the telephone, decided to split the project with each writing different sections, and planned to work out details later. The day of the festival, time ran out and the two separate parts got put together without a rehearsal. Stayhorn described the result to Bill Coss in an interview,
I was sitting in the audience with some other people who knew what had happened . . . [the band] got to my part, then went onto Ellington's part, we burst out laughing. I looked up on stage and Ellington was laughing too. Without really knowing, I had written a theme that was kind of a development of a similar theme he had written. So when he played my portion and went into his, it was as though we had really worked together - or one person had done it (Tucker, 1993, p. 501).
Years later, when working on the first Sacred Concert, history repeated itself. Working 3,000 miles apart, the two wrote out music for In the Beginning God. Each of "the two pieces began and ended with the same notes, and most of the main melodic ideas were identical!" (Wong, 1996, p. 90).
Location, Location, Location
Location plays an important to Gardner's theory of , an exceptional creator. Creative people need to be in places and around people that inspire and support and teach them. Gardner believes the Exceptional Creator needs to be in a place that nurtures their creativity. As a young adult, the Exceptional Creator "moves toward the city that is seen as the center of vital activities" and discovers people with same interests (Gardner, 1996, p. 360) For Duke Ellington, the two locations that inspired his creative talents were the cities of Washington D.C. and Harlem.
Washington D.C.
Duke grew up in the right place for a black boy at the turn of the century. Despite racism and segregation, Washington D.C. remained a "place of promise" for African Americans. The country's largest concentration of African Americans lived in the capital city with leaders in the black community modeling discipline, ambition and achievement through education. "Ellington may have spent his earliest years in a city deeply divided by race and class," writes Mark Tucker, "But this same city inspired its black citizens to aim high and, in so doing, to move beyond category." (Woog, 1996, p.13).
Harlem
From 1920 to 1930 an "unprecedented outburst of creative activity among African Americans occurred in all fields of art" (Harlem Renaissance n.d.). Harlem became the "gathering place for African Americans who craved intellectual, political, or cultural stimulation" (Woog, 1996, p.26). The N.A.A.C.P. and National Urban League based their offices in Harlem along with people like Langston Hughes and W.E.B. DuBois. James Welden Johnson, a writer living in the city called Harlem "A Negro Metropolis" (Burns, 2000).
Ellington went to Harlem in 1923 when a vaudeville performer invited his small band to play for a week. The group fell in love with the city and decided to stay. Steady work, however, did not come as easily as expected. The group slept in the homes of relatives, spent their nights searching for jobs in the nightclubs, and made money by hustling pool. In his memoirs, Ellington wrote,
We would never send home for any money, because we knew that would scare our people to death, and stories about our splitting a hot dog five ways were more a of a gag than anything else. We were getting more bored with our situation than desperate, until one day I had the luck to find fifteen dollars on the street. Then we had a square meal, got on the train, and went back to Washington to get ourselves together before we tried it again (Tucker, 1996 p. 21).
Conclusion
The work and life of Duke Ellington fit within Gardners paradigm of creativity. The locations, work habits, relationships, and creative cycles of Ellington closely parallel the portrait of an E.C. put forth by Gardner. All the questions of creativity have not been answered, but we can have new understanding as we attack the questions about creativity.
References
Burns, K. (director). (2000). JAZZ [television series episode]. Novick, L. (Producer), The Gift. New York: Public Broadcasting Services.
Duke Ellington.com (n.d.) Retrieved March 23, 2003 from
http://www.dukeellington.com
Gardner, H. (1993) Creating Minds. New York: Basic Books.
Gardner, H. (1993) Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice. New York: Basic Books.
Harlem Renaissance (n.d.)Retrieved April 8, 2003 from http://www.nku.edu/~diesmanj/harlem_intro.html
Tucker, Mark.(Ed.)(1993). The Duke Ellington Reader. New York: Oxford University Press Inc.
Woong, Adam. (1996). The Importance of Duke Ellington. Lucent Books, San Diego.
footnote
1. Gardner currently believes in eight intelligences. At the time of his work in creativity, however, he still operated under a paradigm of seven intelligences.
