Essential biographical guide to composer/bandleader Duke
Ellington's music, analyzing its development year by year with
sidebar essays on the best recordings. Hasse (Curator of American
Music/Smithsonian Institution) relates Ellington's life largely as
it ties in with the music. Edward Kennedy Ellington (1899-1974) was
born to - and forever worshipped - the extremely beautiful,
light-skinned Daisy Ellington, a primly refined Washingtonian, and
to James Edward Ellington, once butler to a prominent doctor and at
times caterer to events at the White House, who treated Daisy as a
treasure, raised his family as if a millionaire, and dressed his
son like a duke from his earliest years. Ellington said later,
about his music, that "my strongest influences, my inspirations,
were all Negro" - but, as a child, sometimes the beauty of his
mother's piano-playing caused him to burst into tears, and clearly
the grain of his spirit came from his parents. Ellington forever
broke new ground, never looked back or dwelled on his earlier
music. Many - Hasse included - think him America's greatest
composer, though the input of his sidemen and of fellow composer
Billy Strayhorn must also be weighed in his accomplishments, from
jungle music to the late cantatas. The 119 photos interspersed
throughout the text boost immensely the rich atmosphere of
Ellington's venues, including The Cotton Club and the tours that
became the band's mainstay. Hasse follows closely the growth of the
band and its orchestrations of its finest pieces - "Creole Love
Call," "Mood Indigo," "Sophisticated Lady," etc. - and their varied
recordings over the decades. Brilliantly written. (Kirkus Reviews)
One of the twentieth century's greatest composers, Duke Ellington
(1899-1974) led a fascinating life. Beyond Category, the first
biography to draw on the vast Duke Ellington archives at the
Smithsonian Institution, recounts his remarkable career: his
childhood in Washington, D.C., and his musical apprenticeship in
Harlem his long engagement at the Cotton Club the challenging years
of the depression his tours to Europe and into America's deep
South, where he helped lower racial barriers the postwar years when
television and bebop threatened to eclipse the big bands
Ellington's own triumphant comeback at the 1956 Newport Jazz
Festival his collaborations with Billy Strayhorn, Johnny Hodges,
and Ella Fitzgerald as well as five decades of hits and
masterpieces that constantly broke new ground.The art of Duke
Ellington was a musical expression of the African-American
experience, in all its pain, pride, and glory. He composed his
music as he composed his life,with flair, passion, and
individuality,and no book reveals the man and his artistic
evolution more brilliantly than Beyond Category.
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