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        In a time when music was going through a transformation from a ragtime style to a jazz-blues fusion, Duke Ellington was there to add his own style. There may have been many more decorated composers and musicians, but Duke Ellington revolutionized the way music was written, and in the eyes of many, has earned the title of being the 'great American Composer.'(Williams, 51) Brought up in a modest environment, Ellington never finished high school …

…than a way of earning money, but something of color, life, and meaning. Duke Ellington described music best in his quote:         'Wise and patient,          Unfathomably kind,          Music is the woman you always wanted to find.(Ellington, 39)' Music and Duke Ellington are connected by a strong bind, drawing him to leave his education, his wife, his child, his friends, but always seeming to take care of him as the woman he always wanted to find.