Business Records

Consists of booking contracts and correspondence, tour receipts, personal and band bills and receipts, accounting ledgers, union dues statements, cancelled checks and bank statements, accounting records for several Ellington-owned and operated music companies, tax records and Internal Revenue Service audits, general correspondence, and miscellaneous records. The records document Duke Ellington's career as a musician, composer, and bandleader between 1938 and 1988, and the operation of several of his and Mercer Ellington's music companies, including Tempo Music, Incorporated; Gaye Records, Incorporated, and Eighty-Eight Records, Incorporated. The records illustrate the complexities of maintaining a stable performing musical group when America's tastes in popular music were shifting away from large swing-style orchestras. The records are organized into nine subseries: Subseries 3.1, Performance Management Records, 1941-1974; Subseries 3.2, Accounting Ledgers, 1960-1967; Subseries 3.3, Work Dues Statements, 1965-1974; Subseries 3.4, Bank Records, 1955-1974; Subseries 3.5, Tempo Music, Incorporated Records, 1961-1973; Subseries 3.6, Music Company Records, 1938-1965; Subseries 3.7, Tax Records and Internal Revenue Service Audits, 1944-1974; Subseries 3.8, General Correspondence, 1941-1988; and Subseries 3.9, Miscellaneous Records, 1966-1970.