The Duke – Where and When

A Chronicle of Duke Ellington's
Working Life and Travels

Technical details and tips

File size

In 2022, The Duke - Where and When web page became too large for some internet browsers, so it is now two web pages, each approximately 9mb at the time of writing. You should not try to open either webpage if you must pay data usage or transfer charges with your device.

The web pages may download slowly with slow internet connection speeds but your browser will probably cache it, so it may open quickly until you refresh your browser.

It was not designed to be used with tablet computers or smart phones but it will work slowly on them. If you are using a version of your browser on your desktop computer that is designed for tablets or phones, it will probably slow the web page down significantly.

VPN technology for privacy has become prevalent and seems to keep some browsers from opening these web pages. VPN is intended to protect your privacy, but you shouldn't need to use it for TDWAW. TDWAW does not send cookies, nor does it identify or track users. Turning VPN off may allow the web pages to load faster.

Appearance

I used the Opera browser on a desktop Windows computer with screen resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels while writing this webpage, because Opera is fast. These web pages function well with Windows operating system computers using the latest Firefox, Safari for Windows, Internet Explorer, Chrome and Edge browsers configured for desktop systems, but the appearance might change a little because each browser interprets html and css codes differently. I believe it runs well on Apple or Mac computers as well.

Navigating and Searching:

The navigation bar will take you to the beginning of any year, but otherwise simply move up and down with the scroll bar, the {Up} and {Down} arrows, or the {Page Up} and {Page Down} keys.

{Home} and {End} will take you to the top or bottom of the document.

It's fast and simple to navigate with your browser's Find function ({Ctrl} + {F} in Windows browsers), searching for any text string (city, venue, event name, etc.) or partial text string ("cleve" instead of "Cleveland," for instance).

To find a particular month, spell it out: "May 1951" or "1951 05". To find a specific date, spell it metrically: "yyyy mm dd", i.e "1951 05 13," making sure to include the spaces. You can also abbreviate these search terms a little: "51 05," "51 05 13" and simply press {F3} to move to the next hit.

Completeness

This webpage will not be completed in my lifetime. I began it in 2011 and announced it publicly at the 2014 Ellington conference in 2014. I have spent probably 30,000 hours developing it by now (August 2022), and my colleagues and our predecesors have spent countless hours as well. I have hundreds of contributions, primarily from Steven Lasker and Ken Steiner, to include as well as about 5,000 downloaded newspaper clippings. I still have to finish adding the names of states, days of the week, missing date fillers, and recording session information, as well as numerous entries supplied by Ken Steiner and discovered in my own research. After that, I plan to go through Stratemann, Vail, New Desor, Igo and Dutton's publications methodically, to ensure I have included all the dates they show.

Most of my research has been in paid and free online newspaper archives such as http://newspapers.com, http://geneaologybank.com, http://newspaperarchive.com, http://fultonhistory.com, Billboard (in Google Books), https://lantern.mediahist.org/, California Eagle-archive.org, other Google newspapers, etc. as well as the numerous Ellington biographies I have. I am unable to use the Proquest.com newspaper archive because it does not accept subscriptions by individuals.

Disclaimer re: Reliability

I have not verified all the references taken from other publications or provided by others. That is up to you, the reader, to do. I provide as much information as I can to point you to the information sources.

Keep in mind that Ellington's plans often changed, so the best evidence of an event is a report after the fact. Same day ads may be fairly reliable, but not if the advertising was booked ahead of time.

Where incorrect information has been found in source material, I have tried to reconcile it to the correct information and explain how the error seems to have arisen.

Events reported in the Baltimore Afro-American, the Pittsburgh Courier and similar weekly newspapers, primarily Black newspapers using the Amercian Negro Press service, may be inaccurately dated since they are dated at the end of the week published. A report referring to "last Tuesday" may in fact be about an event the second or third Tuesday before the publication date.

Recording information is primarily taken from Marcus Girvan's http://ellingtonia.com (currently managed by Charlie Dyson), and reconciled to the printed discographies I own. They often differ, particularly for recorded radio and tv shows, where they aired after the actual recording session or recorded concert, or where the discographers were working with different recording compilations of the same music.

Page designed by
David Palmquist
Delta, BC, Canada

2014-06-06
updated
2022-08-30