Duke Ellington and President Harry Truman comparing musical notes at the White House on September 29, 1950. During another visit to Truman’s White House, the president, “wanting to converse as one piano player to another,” dismissed his guards and, as Mr. Ellington described it, he and the president acted like “a couple of cats in a billiard parlor.”

Photo: Bettman/Corbis

Kay Davis, sang with Duke Ellington for six years in the 1940s. Best known for Creole Love Call, the lyric soprano with a bachelor’s and master’s degree (1943) from Northwestern University, will turn 91 on December 5, 2011. This 2009 interview with her is a treasure.

Duke Ellington and his singers Joya Sherrill, Kay Davis and Maria Ellington (no relation - later Mrs. Nat King Cole, mother of Natalie and niece of Charlotte Hawkins Brown).

Boxing legend Joe Frazier with none other than Duke Ellington after defeating Muhammad Ali at Madison Square Garden in New York City on March 8, 1971. Mr. Frazier died tonight at the age of 67.

Duke Ellington, photographed by Gordon Parks in 1943.

Cheers! Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong in Paris, 1960. Photo by Herman Leonard.

Diahann Carroll, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong in Paris in 1960 during the filming of the 1961 movie Paris Blues. Mr. Ellington provided the music for the film and Ms. Carroll starred alongside Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier. Photo by Herman Leonard.

Duke Ellington in Hollywood with his band, 1934. Mr. Ellington was born on this day in 1899.

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was born on this day 112 years ago in Washington, D.C.

Duke Ellington’s “Rhythm Pum Te Dum” from his jazz suite, “A Drum Is a Woman.” This track features my aunt Margaret Tynes, Joya Sherrill, Ozzie Bailey and Mr. Ellington himself. “A Drum Is a Woman” was turned into a 1957 CBS television special  with the aforementioned artists and dancers Carmen de Lavallade and Talley Beatty.

Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington in New York City, 1948.