ronically, Ellington's own name covers an even greater spectrum of sounds: his approximately 1,500 compositions encompass all moods from the revelry of a "Saturday Night Function" to reverence "Come Sunday" and the blues when it's "Monday Every Day." They fit into all forms from three minute pop songs to hour-long symphonies, ballets and musical comedies. They embrace all tonal colors from the highs and lows of black and white Americans to exotic sounds from Africa and the Far East. It's no coincidence that two of Ellington's most important albums of the '60s were collaborations that found the maestro fitting in equally well with major musicians who had each incorporated some of Ellington's principles to a great degree in their own music. They were John Coltrane and Frank Sinatra, who would normally never even get into a sentence together, yet had in common their Ellington influence and experience.

Although Ellington's music reflects every movement in jazz from New Orleans to the New Thing, what he absorbed from outside influences amounted to a token repayment of what every bandleader, composer and arranger borrowed from him. And though he used all instrumental groupings from his solo piano and trios to full symphonic orchestras, he wrote nearly all of his music for the conventional 16-piece dance band format, his orchestra of 50 years boasting legions of the greatest improvisors in jazz.