Author : Mark Tucker
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 564 pages
File Size : 35,93 MB
Release : 1993
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780195093919
A collection of writings by and about Duke Ellington and his place in jazz history.
Author : Gunther Schuller
Publisher : History of Jazz
Page : 948 pages
File Size : 14,2 MB
Release : 1989
Category : History
ISBN : 9780195071405
Focuses on the period in American musical history from 1930 to 1945 when jazz was synonymous with America's popular music.
Author : Terry Teachout
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 498 pages
File Size : 23,75 MB
Release : 2013-10-17
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0698138589
A major new biography of Duke Ellington from the acclaimed author of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was the greatest jazz composer of the twentieth century—and an impenetrably enigmatic personality whom no one, not even his closest friends, claimed to understand. The grandson of a slave, he dropped out of high school to become one of the world’s most famous musicians, a showman of incomparable suavity who was as comfortable in Carnegie Hall as in the nightclubs where he honed his style. He wrote some fifteen hundred compositions, many of which, like “Mood Indigo” and “Sophisticated Lady,” remain beloved standards, and he sought inspiration in an endless string of transient lovers, concealing his inner self behind a smiling mask of flowery language and ironic charm. As the biographer of Louis Armstrong, Terry Teachout is uniquely qualified to tell the story of the public and private lives of Duke Ellington. A semi-finalist for the National Book Award, Duke peels away countless layers of Ellington’s evasion and public deception to tell the unvarnished truth about the creative genius who inspired Miles Davis to say, “All the musicians should get together one certain day and get down on their knees and thank Duke.”
Author : A. H. Lawrence
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 552 pages
File Size : 18,22 MB
Release : 2004-03-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1135880611
Based on lengthy interviews with Ellington's bandmates, family, and friends, Duke Ellington and His World offers a fresh look at this legendary composer. The first biography of the composer written by a fellow musician and African-American, the book traces Ellington's life and career in terms of the social, cultural, political, and economic realities of his times. Beginning with his birth in Washington, DC, through his first bands and work at the legendary Cotton Club, to his final great extended compositions, this book gives a thorough introduction to Ellington's music and how it was made. It also illuminates his personal life because, for Ellington, music was his life and his life was a constant inspiration for music.
Author : W. E. Timner
Publisher : Scarecrow Press
Page : 684 pages
File Size : 46,33 MB
Release : 2000-01-01
Category : Music
ISBN : 0585040842
More than a discography, this book compiles the complete recorded music of Duke Ellington and his sidemen, including studio recordings, movie soundtracks, concerts, dance dates, radio broadcasts, telecasts, and private recordings, creating an easy to use reference source for Jazz collectors and scholars.
Author : Carin T. Ford
Publisher : Enslow Publishers, Inc.
Page : 132 pages
File Size : 22,62 MB
Release : 2007-06-01
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 9780766027022
Discusses the life and work of Duke Ellington, who remains one of the most influential jazz composers, pianists, and band leaders.
Author : Eddy Determeyer
Publisher : University of Michigan Press
Page : 357 pages
File Size : 50,14 MB
Release : 2010-03-10
Category : Music
ISBN : 0472026305
In the 1930s, swing music reigned, and the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra was the hottest and hippest attraction on the black dance circuits. Known for its impeccable appearance and infectious rhythms, Lunceford's group was able to out-swing and outdraw any band. For ten consecutive years, they were the best-loved attraction at Harlem's famed Apollo Theater. The group's hit recordings sold in the hundreds of thousands, and Jimmie Lunceford's band rivaled Ellington's for popularity in the African American community. Jimmie Lunceford was also an innovator, elevating big-band showmanship to an art and introducing such novel instruments as the electric guitar and bass. The band's arrangements, written by Sy Oliver, Edwin Wilcox, Gerald Wilson, Billy Moore, Jr., and Tadd Dameron, were daring and forward looking, influencing generations of big-band writers. Rhythm Is Our Business traces the development of the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra from its infant days as a high school band in Memphis to its record-breaking tours across the United States, Canada, and Europe. The book also unveils Lunceford's romantic yet ill-fated involvement with Yolande Du Bois, daughter of famous writer and opinion leader W.E.B. Du Bois. And by reconstructing Lunceford's last day, the book offers a glimpse into the mysteries surrounding the leader's untimely death. This is essential reading for anyone interested in the history and legacy of swing. Eddy Determeyer has been a freelance music journalist for more than three decades. In 1984 Determeyer wrote a seven-part series on Jimmie Lunceford for the Dutch magazine Jazz Nu. Determeyer has written thousands of articles on music for a variety of Dutch publications and is the author of several books. He currently produces the Holiday for Hipsters radio show for Dutch station Concertzender. Cover image: Lunceford brass section, ca. late 1936. Left to right: Paul Webster, Eddie Durham, Sy Oliver, Elmer Crumbley, Eddie Tompkins, Russell Bowles. (Bertil Lyttkens Collection)
Author : Charles B Hersch
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 262 pages
File Size : 36,16 MB
Release : 2016-10-14
Category : Music
ISBN : 131727038X
Jews and Jazz: Improvising Ethnicity explores the meaning of Jewish involvement in the world of American jazz. It focuses on the ways prominent jazz musicians like Stan Getz, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Lee Konitz, Dave Liebman, Michael Brecker, and Red Rodney have engaged with jazz in order to explore and construct ethnic identities. The author looks at Jewish identity through jazz in the context of the surrounding American culture, believing that American Jews have used jazz to construct three kinds of identities: to become more American, to emphasize their minority outsider status, and to become more Jewish. From the beginning, Jewish musicians have used jazz for all three of these purposes, but the emphasis has shifted over time. In the 1920s and 1930s, when Jews were seen as foreign, Jews used jazz to make a more inclusive America, for themselves and for blacks, establishing their American identity. Beginning in the 1940s, as Jews became more accepted into the mainstream, they used jazz to "re-minoritize" and avoid over-assimilation through identification with African Americans. Finally, starting in the 1960s as ethnic assertion became more predominant in America, Jews have used jazz to explore and advance their identities as Jews in a multicultural society.
Author : Charlotte Etinde-Crompton
Publisher : Enslow Publishing, LLC
Page : 106 pages
File Size : 34,42 MB
Release : 2019-07-15
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN : 1978504144
His was the greatest of talents, concealed beneath a carefree exterior. Duke Ellington possessed musical genius, which he claimed to exert for the glory of God and on behalf of his fellow African Americans. Readers will get to know the many sides of the legendary composer. The sunshiny smile displayed at concert time could sometimes be replaced by a frightful temper behind the scenes. Genius often comes at a price, but Duke Ellington's work is paramount. It includes 1,800 musical compositions and a virtually uncountable number of concert appearances. Readers will agree that his contributions belong to the ages.
Author : Denise Von Glahn
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
Page : 569 pages
File Size : 16,73 MB
Release : 2021-09-14
Category : Music
ISBN : 0252052951
Composers like Charles Ives, Duke Ellington, Aaron Copland, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich created works that indelibly commemorated American places. Denise Von Glahn analyzes the soundscapes of fourteen figures whose "place pieces" tell us much about the nation's search for its own voice and about its ever-changing sense of self. She connects each composer's feelings about the United States and their reasons for creating a piece to the music, while analyzing their compositional techniques, tunes, and styles. Approaching the compositions in chronological order, Von Glahn reveals how works that celebrated the wilderness gave way to music engaged with humanity's influence--benign and otherwise--on the landscape, before environmentalism inspired a return to nature themes in the late twentieth century. Wide-ranging and astute, The Sounds of Place explores high art music's role in the making of national myth and memory.
