Celebrating the Duke offers readers a perceptive, panoramic survey of jazz as revealed, in illuminating detail, through the lives and music of its heroes (and heroines), from its founding fathers to the post-bebop generation, including Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Jimmie Lunceford, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Albert Ayler, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and a rich cache of writings on "America's greatest composer", the Duke himself.