I'm sure there are about 92 million podcasts, blogposts, webinars, seminars, ad courses, ad schools, pontificators and powerpoints that purport to teach people how to write. My simple realization is this: if any of those so-called instructional entities consist of more than one word, you've wasted your time and your money.
There's one way to learn how to write. And the 101 of it can be summed up in one word: Read.
If you need a 201 course, that too, can be summed up in one word: Practice.
If you need a 301 course, there's a single word for that, too: Re-write.
Finally, if you need a graduate-level course, that description will take a little longer: Write every day.
Next month, I'll have completed my 18th year of writing in this space, not having missed a working day for all that time. I've written 6,980 posts in that time, give or take a hundred, and estimating about 300 words a post, 2.06 million words.
Of course those 2.06 million words have made me a better writer. Would I have better abs if I had done 2.06 million sit-ups? Would I make a better omelet if I had cracked 4.12 million eggs? Would I get picked sooner down at the playground if I had practiced 2.06 million jump shots?
Along the way, people ask me how the fuck I do it.
See 101 above.
For example--this morning before 7AM, I read this article in the extremely well-written "Wall Street Journal." I shy away from their politics, but read almost everything else. Except articles about debentures. My teeth are bad enough. Because of the Journal's Draconian paywall, I'll paste the text at the end of this post, because you owe it to yourself.
This isn't about, of course, whether or not you agree with the author's appraisal of Ellington and his work. This is about two things. 1) The style. How the article's thoughts are presented and 2) The substance. What you can learn from the details of the article.
Good writing, like good anything from making love to making omelets, demands a mixture of style and substance. How can you improve if you don't work at it?
Again, before seven, I sent one of my closest friends both in and out of the business a pdf of the article. It's one of the many burdens of being my confidant. I had highlighted some sentences I thought were of particular importance to the ad industry, specifically, being a creative leader.
Here they are. Read them, and if you can, real-time translate them into descriptions of an advertising person. I think you'll see some universal components of greatness.
1. Longevity.
2. Dedication.
3. Un-stuck-ness.
4. Selflessness. Making others better.
5. A pragmatic love of problem-solving.
6. Border-defying. Not a one-trick pony.
Again, this isn't about loving Duke Ellington, hating him or being indifferent to him. This is about learning to write. And learning to learn.
2. Dedication.
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Duke Ellington at 125: A Singular Swinging Master
Born in April 1899, the jazz pioneer ranks as the greatest all-around figure in the history of American music.
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Duke Ellington encompassed multitudes. He lived 75 years and directed his jazz orchestra for 50. His compositions number 1,700. More than 800 musicians recorded with him. He led his ensemble through 10,000 recordings, an estimated 20,000 performances and 10 million miles of travels across 65 countries.
But his legacy goes far beyond numbers. In American music, I argue, Ellington ranks as the greatest all-around figure: composer, arranger-orchestrator, bandleader-conductor, piano accompanist, soloist and musical thinker. He composed broadly—three-minute songs and instrumentals such as “Mood Indigo,” multi-movement suites like “Such Sweet Thunder,” scores for such motion pictures as “Anatomy of a Murder” and ballets as “The River,” and concerts of sacred music. He was a restless innovator who kept evolving, much as did Pablo Picasso, Frank Lloyd Wright and Miles Davis.
Ellington dedicated his career to commanding racial respect. Supporting social justice and civil rights, he advanced esteem for African-Americans through his elegant deportment and sophisticated music, and with such pieces as his “Black Beauty,” “Symphony in Black” and “Black, Brown and Beige.”
Ellington was born in Washington on April 29, 1899, and in 1924 he began recording his own compositions. In the ’20s, popular music primarily emphasized songs, leaving room for stars who made hits. Late in that decade, Louis Armstrong musically stamped each tune he touched as his own, putting emphasis on the solo performer. But few members of the public could name a musician working within a band. Ellington thought up and implemented a more complex, revolutionary musical model.
Within that collective, he strove to maximize the individuality of all his players to create a dazzling, original idiom. Unlike other composers, he didn’t write for first trumpet or second trumpet, but rather for the bandmembers playing those instruments. Like a magisterial painter, he alchemized his one-of-a-kind pigments—the signature styles of his performers—into a wondrous aggregate greater than the sum of its parts.
In 1961, Ellington said, “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?”
He was in fact a ceaseless obstacle jumper. He spoke of his players, “We have deep consideration for the limitations of everyone; it’s an interesting problem to handle.” Ellington solved the challenge of shortcomings by listening closely to all his musicians and then composing to highlight their strengths.
While clarinetist Benny Goodman kept his big-band players for an average of three years, Ellington managed to retain his performers for an average of 15, some for two or three times longer. He did so by writing pieces that featured individual musicians, such as trumpeter Cootie Williams in “Concerto for Cootie.” Unlike Goodman, who was wont to monopolize solo space, Ellington generously gave it away to his bandmembers, throwing the spotlight on them rather than on himself.
How did Ellington keep his music fresh? By jotting down musical notations nearly every day of his adult life, producing a stream of new pieces year after year. He left behind roughly 100,000 pages of music manuscripts, nearly all preserved at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
He maintained his orchestra for half a century to introduce and proffer his work: Each night was like a rehearsal or laboratory for the next piece he was composing. Some of his musicians were expensive, but Ellington knew that without hearing his creations nightly, his ability to compose would suffer greatly.
Across the U.S. and Europe, Ellington’s 125th birthday is being celebrated throughout the year. In Washington, the John F. Kennedy Center is leading the way, offering 21 different programs. Pianist Jason Moran, the Center’s artistic director for jazz, said in an email, “Ellington’s work stands as a towering tree that provides us fruit and shelter.”
Meanwhile, creating new audiences for Ellington’s music has been a driving mission of Jazz at Lincoln Center, which since 1996 has run the annual Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Contest and distributed 300,000 Ellington music “charts” for free to 40,000 high-school bands in 57 countries, involving nearly one million students. It’s an unprecedented success story.
Ellington’s legacy reaches well beyond his corpus of consummate music: He became a cultural hero, inspired thousands of performers, arrangers and composers, and brought joy to millions of listeners.
In later years, Ellington used the expression “beyond category” as the highest possible praise for someone, such as Ella Fitzgerald, unique in her brilliance. Because of the unmatched sound of his orchestra, the extraordinary range of his creations and the astonishing artistic heights to which his music soared, no one deserved his accolade more than he did himself
Mr. Hasse is curator emeritus of American music at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and author of “Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington” (Da Capo). He often speaks on Ellington in lectures and panel discussions.
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Appeared in the April 25, 2024, print edition as 'Duke Ellington’s Singular Swing'.
