As a highly talented bandleader, composer and pianist, Duke Ellington had such a remarkable influence on popular music that he was hailed as a genius long before he died on 24 May 1974 aged 75.

He was the grandson of a former slave and his parents were talented pianists, who encouraged him to learn the piano as a child.

His real love was art, but he switched to music on realising that the nicest girls “hung around piano players.” His first professional job was playing the piano in a pool hall.

His school friends nicknamed him Duke because of his naturally elegant manner and impeccable dress sense.

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was born on 29 April 1899 in Washington DC where his father held down several jobs to support the family – even working as a butler at the White House.

He formed his first band the Washingtonians in 1923 and moved to New York to become resident musicians at the Kentucky Club.

Four years later, the Washingtonians were hired by Harlem’s Cotton Club and also starred in the club’s weekly radio show.

The Cotton Club catered mainly for New York’s high society, but his most devoted fans were African-Americans. When touring the United States, the musicians lived on a private train to avoid racial segregation in some States.

Mr Ellington's band became a fully-fledged orchestra by the 1940s and included such a host of top-flight musicians that it was virtually the jazz world’s hall of fame. Many of the instrumentalists spent their entire careers with his orchestra.

The line-up included major players, such as saxophonist Johnny Hodges who joined in 1928 and stayed until his death in 1970. Another leading saxophonist Harry Carney worked with the orchestra for about 47 years, and died just a few months before Duke.

His orchestra soon won international acclaim. It started touring England and Europe, as well as far-flung places like India, Pakistan, the Far East, Australia and South America.

He was a profoundly religious man, who regularly studied his Bible and also created religious music and three sacred concerts.

Duke Ellington is widely regarded as one of the 20th century’s greatest composers, who wrote more than 2,000 pieces of music during an astonishingly versatile career covering almost 60 years.

He won more than a dozen Grammy Awards, received a Pulitzer nomination, and was awarded America’s two highest civilian honours: the Medal of Freedom, and the President’s Gold Medal. He was the first jazz musician to be elected to the Royal Music Academy of Stockholm.

Mr Ellington's enduring legacy is a wealth of mesmerising music, which this great virtuoso preferred to regard as the “American Sound” rather than simply jazz.

His compositions like “Creole Love Call”, “Mood Indigo”, “In A Sentimental Mood”, and “In My Solitude”, still enjoy worldwide popularity among jazz aficionados, professional musicians and at jazz festivals.