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Few American artists in any medium have enjoyed the international and lasting cultural impact of Duke Ellington. This title paints a portrait of the life and times of this towering figure, taking him from his youth in the black middle-class enclave of Washington, DC, to the heights of worldwide acclaim.
Book Details
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
Publication Date:
21-Oct-2011
ISBN:
9780226112640
Guardian review
Duke Ellington's America by Harvey G Cohen - review
the guardian Tue 10 January 2012
Neither musical analysis nor full-blown biography, this impressive book is perhaps best described as cultural history with a biographical focus. As he traces Ellington's "five-decade streak of creativity", from the 1920s to the 60s, Cohen records such breakthroughs as his band's famous Cotton Club residency (which gave it a national following via radio) and the pioneering tours of a still-segregated deep south. And he shows how the Duke's dignity, and his gifts as composer and band leader, made him a bridge between worlds regarded as separate: black and white, highbrow and lowbrow, formulaic chart music and innovative art music. For Cohen, Ellington is not merely an ideal viewfinder through which to watch America changing over the course of the 20th century; he transformed "the nation's racial and cultural landscape". This despite shunning the soapbox and resisting militants' pleas to speak out against racism Ellington preferred to advance the black cause by being (as the novelist Ralph Ellison put it) "an example and a goal".