Product Description
18 Ellington greats arranged for easy piano. Includes: Caravan * Don't Get Around Much Anymore * I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good * It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) * Satin Doll * Sophisticated Lady * Take the "A" Train * and more. ... Read more

Product Description
A beautiful new collection, featuring 36 songs by this American master. An extensive section of text includes facts about Ellington's life, and articles on Duke Ellington the composer, the pianist, the bandleader, and the recording studio aficionado. Each section of text is illustrated by photos. All the major songs by Duke Ellington are presented: Caravan * Day Dream * Do Nothin' Till You Hear from Me * Don't Get Around Much Anymore * Drop Me Off in Harlem * I Didn't Know About You * In a Sentimental Mood * It Don't Mean a Thing * Satin Doll * Solitude * Sophisticated Lady * and many others. Also included are long-out-of-print songs from Ellington's only Broadway show, Beggar's Holiday. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent Tunes!

Just for the record:
Amazon is confusing this book with another one that they offer. In the "Book Description" in the Editorial Review above they incorrectly advertise this collection as having '36' of his songs within. There are '22' songs, not 36. There 'is' another very similar Ellington songbook with an almost identical cover that indeed 'does' have the 36 songs they advertise. That book is 'not' in the EZ Play format however. If you want to look at the 36 song version, it is ISBN: 0793540127 (just copy and paste that number into Amazon's search box). You can compare the two books and make a more informed decision about which book you might prefer.

I own this music book and find myself often going to it to play Ellington's wonderful melodies. He was a master craftsman; he was a genius.

This is in the EZ Play format which means that if you can read music minimally the tunes are easy to play.

Songs listed within:

***Boy Meets Horn

***C-Jam Blues

***Caravan

***Cotton Tail

***The Creole Love Call

***Day Dream

***Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me

***Don't Get Around Much Anymore

***East St. Louis Toodle-Oo

***I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good

***I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart

***I'm Just A Lucky So And So

***In A Sentimental Mood

***It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)

***Just Squeeze Me (But Don't Tease Me)

***Love You Madly

***Mood Indigo

***Prelude To A Kiss

***Ring Dem Bells

***Satin Dolls

***Solitude

***Sophisticated Lady
__________ __________ __________ __________ __________

I recommend this Ellington music book collection to you. ... Read more

Product Description
A superb career-spanning collection of ten classic Duke Ellington performances from the Storyville Records archives, complete with matching transcriptions and ORIGINAL RECORDINGS on the CD. Together they offer a unique insight into the technique of one of the all-time great jazz pianists. Songs include: C-Jam Blues * Caravan * Don't Get Around Much Anymore * Satin Doll * Take the "A" Train * and more. ... Read more

Product Description
Music lovers everywhere have hailed Duke Ellington as one of the greatest geniuses of jazz.Yet, aside from Ellington's own rather unrevealing autobiography and a collection of reminiscences of his band members, no in-depth biography of this preeminent figure of twentieth-century music and entertainment has previously existed.James Lincoln Collier fills this gap with his definitive critical biography of both the man and his music.
Author of the highly acclaimed Louis Armstrong: An American Genius, Collier tells the full story of Edward Kennedy Ellington from his childhood as the pampered and adored only son of a middle-class Washington black family to his death in 1974 when over ten thousand people mourned at his funeral and The New York Times obituary proclaimed him "America's greatest composer." The volume features such highlights as the formation of Ellington's band, which ultimately included some of the greatest names in jazz history such as Barney Bigard, Johnny Hodges, Cootie Williams, Lawrence Brown, and Paul Gonsalves; his arrival at the legendary Cotton Club in Harlem in the 1920s; his involvement with his manager Irving Mills, who manipulated and cheated him and even put his own name on some of Ellington's songs, but also made him famous; and his relationship with his family, including his troubled relationship with his son, his marriage, and his many affairs.
Above all, Collier focuses on the creation of the music, from the classic songs such as "Sophisticated Lady" to the "sacred concerts" of Ellington's last years.He argues that we need to view Ellington not strictly as a "composer," but more importantly as an "improvising jazz musician."The whole band served as his instrument.Not all will agree with Collier's controversial assessments, but this compelling biography will enthrall jazz buffs as well as anyone interested in a fascinating life and times. ... Read more

Product Description
It may be that the song most baby boomers identify from July 1956 is a simple twelve-bar blues, hyped on national television by a twenty-one-year-old Elvis Presley and his handlers. But it is a very different song, with its elongated fourteen-bar choruses of rhythm and dissonance, played on the night of July 7, 1956, by a fifty-seven-year-old Duke Ellington and his big band that got everybody on their feet and moving as one. More than fifty years later, "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue," recorded at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival, still makes a profound statement about postwar America - how we got there and where it all went."Backstory in Blue" is a behind-the-scenes look at this epic moment in American cultural history. It is the story of who and what made Ellington's composition so compelling and how one piece of music reflected the feelings and shaped the sensibilities of the postwar generation. As John Fass Morton explains, it was music expressed as much by those who performed offstage as by those who performed on.Written from the point of view of the audience, this unique account draws on interviews with fans and music professionals of all kinds who were there and whose lives were touched, and in some cases changed, by the experience. Included are profiles of George Avakian, who recorded and produced Ellington at Newport 1956; Paul Gonsalves, the tenor sax player responsible for the legendary twenty-seven choruses that enabled the rebirth of Ellington's career; and the "Bedford Blonde," Elaine Anderson, whose dance ignited both the band and the crowd.Duke Ellington once remarked, "I was born at Newport." Here we learn that Newport was much more than the turning point for Ellington's career. It was the tipping point for a generation and a musical genre. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

great acount of one of jazz's greats
This is a wonderful book about how Duke Ellington reviewedhis career at Newport in the l950s and went on to triumph. But its not just about one incident - through the prism of that event, it encapsulates much of the history of jazz, music, and black-white relations in 20th century America.

The Fascinating Story Behind Ellington at Newport
The following review appeared in issue 315 of Jazz & Blues Report (April 2009). My star rating is being conservative or stingy.

The last few years have seen a spate of books centered around a record album, telling the story about the artists and how the specific album came about and its impact. For example, Ashley Kahn has provided wonderful volumes devoted to "Kind of Blue" and "A Love Supreme." John Fass Morton's new book, "Backstory in Blue: Ellington at Newport 56" is on one level the story of the classic live recording by Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, but it goes even deeper into social history to examine not simply how the recording happened, but also discuss the impact of the Festival performance.

The performance at Newport is recognized as helping revive Ellington's prominence in the American music scene and Morton provides a valuable and concise sketch of Ellington's career, including his emergence in New York during the twenties; the prominent part he played in the Swing era; how he was affected by the decline of the big bands and the shift in the direction of popular music; and the recording career including Ellington's aspirations which related to the writing and performance/recording of longer compositions. Yet no longer enjoying the financial success allowing him to maintain the same level of a band, by 1955 Ellington had to accept a six week stint at the Aquacades in Flushing Meadows, the site of the 1939 World's Fair, which also led to him having to replace several band members lacking a local union card.

At this time Ellington was also frustrated with the record companies. While Columbia, which was popularizing the new LP form, enabled Ellington to record extended works including the now highly regarded "Masterpieces" and "Ellington Uptown," they were not commercial successes. And frustrated with the two major labels, Victor and Columbia, he signed with Capital but again met little success. Ellington was an emcee at the 1955 Newport Jazz Festival, foreshadowing his performance the next year and by then had resigned with Columbia where he was reunited with George Avakian who had produced "Masterpieces" and had also produced successful recordings by Dave Brubeck and Louis Armstrong, and was behind the recording of Ellington and others at the 1956 Festival.

Morton weaves together Avakian's biography along with that of the members of the 1956 Ellington Band, the most interesting of which was tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves (of Cape Verdean descent), the birth and early history of the Newport Jazz Festivals and the story of Elaine Anderson, the blonde lady whose dance during Paul Gonsalves' tenor solo was part of the musical magic generated that July 1956 evening. It is fascinating to read how Elaine Lorillard, wife of an heir of a tobacco fortune, helped establish the festival in this most unlikely setting, a high society community. Then she helped sustain the festival against local opposition towards the earliest Newport Festivals. This is where George Wein first started producing festivals, and there were a number of interesting tidbits including the fact that Wein created the Photographer's Pit for the first Newport Jazz Festival, something many working press at festivals take for granted.

We get to the magic evening and the performance of Ellington and others on the bill that night. Ellington's long-extended original work, Newport Jazz Festival Suite, had received lukewarm applause, and recognizing this he launched into Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue, with an interval where he would play piano before calling forth Gonsalves who launched into one of the most celebrated tenor saxophone blues solos of all time with the band spurred on as Jo Jones whacked a roll newspaper into his hand. As the audience reaction got more enthusiastic, Elaine Anderson started dancing in the aisle near the stage while Gonsalves kept preaching the blues. Her dance was captured by the photographers in the Photo Pit and were included in coverage of the event as well as on the back cover of "Ellington at Newport 56." At the time her identity was not known, but Morton was able to uncover her story of a one-time Hollywood hopeful starlet who had settled into the somewhat frustrating live of a wife and mother. And while this is going on, we learn how Avakian and others are dealing with the fact Gonsalves is not playing directly into the mike being used to record his performance, but fortunately into a microphone used by Voice of America for foreign broadcast and the recording of which years later would be used in some reissues of the album in the digital age. Morton then discusses the aftermath of that night including the release of the recording, the impact of the album and press coverage of Ellington's performance on the revitalization of his big band, and what happened to the participants subsequently.

There is so much in this rich and varied story for Morton to tell us. Given the rich historical tapestry, there are places one might feel one is bogged down in detail, but not only would one be hard-pressed to find anything extraneous, but at a certain point the story told here takes over and you settle in for the ride. Washington post book critic Jonathan Yardley authored the book's introduction and he notes that "I have been blessed in many ways, probably more than I deserve, with a richly rewarding private life and a small but gratifying public one, but that night in Newport stands alone and apart." It is to Morton's credit that he is able to convey some sense of the magic that made that night so unique and memorable. This book will make those having the album listen to it a new, and for others hopefully lead them to discover that one magical evening in Newport, Rhode Island.
... Read more

Product Description
Drawing upon a remarkable mix of intensive research and the personal experience of a career devoted to the music about which Dvoák so presciently spoke, Maurice Peress's lively and convincing narrative treats readers to a rare and delightful glimpse behind the scenes of the burgeoning American school of music and beyond.

In Dvorak to Duke Ellington, Peress begins by recounting the music's formative years: Dvorák's three year residency as Director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York (1892-1895), and his students, in particular Will Marion Cook and Rubin Goldmark, who would in turn become the teachers of Ellington, Gershwin, and Copland. We follow Dvorák to the famed Chicago World's Fair of 1893, where he directed a concert of his music for Bohemian Honor Day. Peress brings to light the little known African American presence at the Fair: the piano professors, about-to-be-ragtimers; and the gifted young artists Paul Dunbar, Harry T. Burleigh, and Cook, who gathered at the Haitian Pavilion with its director, Frederick Douglass, to organize their own gala concert for Colored Persons Day.

Peress, a distinguished conductor, is himself a part of this story; working with Duke Ellington on the Suite from Black, Brown and Beige and his "opera comique," Queenie Pie; conducting the world premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass; and reconstructing landmark American concerts at which George Antheil's Ballet Mecanique, George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, James Reese Europe's Clef Club (the first all-black concert at Carnegie Hall), and Ellington's Black, Brown and Beige, were first presented. Concluding with an astounding look at Ellington and his music, Dvorák to Duke Ellington offers an engrossing, elegant portrait of the Dvorák legacy, America's music, and the inestimable African-American influence upon it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Stunningly Insightful Book for the Jazz Fan
Peress's 'Dvorak to Duke Ellington' is necessary reading for any serious Duke Ellington fan or any student of the lineage of jazz.

Despite long passages spoken in highly technical musical terminology (which will be manna for composers out there), Peress brings so many interesting anecdotes to light, so many fresh insights into Ellington's working methods to composing, laypersons too will gain profound wisdom into the infrastructure that later brought BeBop, hardBop, Modern, R&B, Blues and Rock & Roll into reality.

For Duke lovers, it is heartening to see Peress discover (tearfully) what we already had known: his music is a gift to world history. Peress's nuanced details as to how Duke scored his sobering emotional analyses of Black Culture is particularly stunning, he having access to rare Ellington family archives and an insiders association with the Duke.

And Duke was a poet - literally. YES!

I was completely taken aback at how much is owed to Antonin Dvorak, the Czech emigree, for shaping the jazz juggernaut, or more specifically, the jazz orchestral juggernaut. I am not sure that the limber modern Jazz idiom as we know it, or the Gershwin orchestral phenomenon, would have garnered legitimacy without Dvorak's extra-ordinary cheerleading of our indigenous arts such as Ragtime, sharecropper tunes, and gospel songs. There is an argument intrinsically proffered in the book that Dvorak might have assisted in the abolition of minstrelsy itself.

Peress only missed a few related facts. For instance, he did not cover the Harlem Renaissance leadership and it's muscular shaping of the Jazz and Blues idioms. Those gentlemen (Dubois, et.al) also marketed the Duke heavily, and deserve a mention in this book. Peress also did not describe the original etymology of Jazz as being 'Jass,' a vulgar term coined by whites for early New Orleans jazz that meant something akin to Sexual Intercourse, which I believe should be defined in every sweeping analysis of this art.

Lastly, this book reveals the star-touched career of the author, Maurice Peress, as a composer. I look forward to collecting Peress's jazz re-conditionings, as well as Classical recordings, on CD and vinyl at the soonest opportunity.

Michael James Hawk
Seattle WA USA
July 3, 2007

Terrific book by a real pro
Maurice Peress is an inspiring guide to the main roads and byways of American music. A conductor of distinction and a writer, scholar and thinker of substance, he offers a combination of personal reminiscences and exciting historical discoveries. He is a leading expert on Dvorak and his time, and offers fresh new insights into the material. His original research on Dvorak's American years has been quite influential in the development of this field more broadly and thus he may be considered the "Dean" of American Dvorak scholarship.

This is a splendid book to read straight through, or to browse and enjoy. ... Read more

Product Description
Your favorite sheet music will come to life with the innovative Piano Play-Along series! With these book/CD collections, piano and keyboard players can practice and perform with professional-sounding accompaniments. Containing eight cream-of-the-crop songs each, the books feature new engravings, with a separate vocal staff, plus guitar frames, so players and their friends can sing or strum along. The CDs feature two tracks for each tune: full performances for listening, and separate backing tracks that let players take the lead on keyboard. The high-quality, sound-alike accompaniments exactly match the printed music. Caravan * Do Nothin' Till You Hear from Me * I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good * In a Sentimental Mood * It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) * Love You Madly * Mood Indigo * Sophisticated Lady. ... Read more

Product Description
Duke Ellington's son Mercer has said that his father was frustrated in only one area of musical ambition: his desire to do his own Broadway show. Though Ellington wrote many theatrical pieces, he was never able to achieve success as a composer for the stage, and today his stage shows receive little attention from music historians. Nevertheless, these works occupied a significant place in Ellington's creative imagination, and many of the ideas he employed in their composition found their way into his other work.Here is the first book to acknowledge Duke Ellington's contribution to the stage. It offers a survey of every theater piece Ellington is known to have worked on during his lifetime, beginning with the 1925 revue The Chocolate Kiddies and ending with the unfinished "street opera" Queenie Pie. This large body of work includes full-length musicals, African American revues, ballets, and incidental music. The plot of each work is described and the score analyzed according to its dramatic function in the piece. Musical phrases are reproduced in the text, and associations with other well-known Ellington compositions are noted. An appendix provides a chronological listing of Ellington's shows with song titles conveniently listed under each. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

ground breaking and highly detailed
This is the first book about Duke Ellington's vast theatre music, and it's inCredible detailed and knowledgable. It helps to have the book written by a composer of note. Even the Duke Ellington Society raves about this one, as well they should. Music examples, great pictures. But the beauty is in the writing; between academic and pop. Brilliant - literally. ... Read more

Amazon.com Review
It's hard not to feel a little sorry for Mercer Ellington, whoby his own admission spent the better part of his life locked in anOedipal struggle with his brilliant dad. But let's not forget thatMercer wrote a handful of classics, ranging from melancholic moodpieces ("Blue Serge") to jam-session perennials("Things Ain't What They Used to Be"). Nor should weoverlook this fine memoir, which offers a window into Ellington'sfantastically elusive private life. This is neither a dutifulhagiography nor an act of literary patricide: instead, Mercer haseffectively mingled his father's story with his own. And in the end,he's too respectful of Duke's genius not to forgive his moments ofpaternal pettiness and axe-grinding. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Ellington is fabulous!
One of America's greatest jazz composers, Duke Ellington was thedefinitive jazzman of his time.While many of us have heard his songs, fewof us know the history behind it.This book is a great enlightener forthose of us who can stand some light reading.I strongly recommend it toanyone who has heard his music. ... Read more

Product Description
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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The place to go with questions on Ellington recordings
This book fills in the gaps left by dodgy or absent liner notes. The main body of the text is a chronological list of Ellington band performances (including the small ensembles under sidemen's names) which were known to have been recorded and released by somebody at sometime somewhere. The typical entry includes:
a)title of ensemble (e.g. D.E. and his Famous Orchestra, Johnny Hodges and his Orchestra etc.),
b)date,
c) nature of performance (live, studio, movie sound track),
d)musicians,
e)place, and
f) titles with original record label & identifying numbers. There are occasionally notes giving variant titles.
There is also an alphabetical list of titles indicating the various recording dates and several lists and indexes of "Ellingtonians", band personnel who were connected with the Ellington organization in any way, as well as lists of record labels and the various names under which Ellington recorded.
This is entirely oriented toward identifying recordings, not compositions, so there is no composer or publishing data given. There is no interpretive or evaluative commentary.
Keep in mind that there have been several editions, as new performances are occasionally unearthed, so this is a work in progress. For example, the fifth volume of the Duke Ellington Treasury Shows, released by Storyville in 2002, included a live performance from 1945 that I did not find in Timner.

Essential for any serious Ellington lover
This is a huge and initially intimidating book which lists every known recording of Duke Ellington including much that has never been released. Also included are recording of 'Ellingtonians', men from the band who now and then led their own groups. Heavily indexed and cross-referenced.

I've had the 4th edition ever since it came out and I find it indespensible. Grab one now before you have to buy one used at twice the price!

... ... Read more

Product Description
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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Just because it's no Rosebud doesn't justify dismissal
[Now that I have the book in hand, I can see why it might irritate and even offend a few Ellington fans.The writer doesn't show a great deal of sympathy much less empathy for the Duke's human qualities much less any insights into the pressures of the music business, multiplied manyfold when you're the star-icon-leader-moderator-party guest-soloist-legend from whom much is expected.The book reports a number of facts, and no doubt "factoids," about Duke's life much in the manner of a tabloid publication.Nevertheless, for those who know Duke, and who think they can feel his beating heart next to theirs, it's great to have the information.The reader is free to dismiss and accept, and to flesh out and qualify as need be.I wouldn't recommend the book for a newbie or "outsider"any more than some of the below-the-belt sniping accounts of Sinatra's life.But unlike so many Americans these days, who apparently never lived through the '60s--or perhaps never went beyond the Salem witch trials--I have no difficulty matching some of the unpleasantries about Duke with the equally unattractive qualities of the reader.So judgment is beside the point not to mention premature (shouldn't it be preceded by understanding?).The book is no accolade or encomium, nor does it do such a great job in communicating the positive qualities of Duke. But if you're a good reader (which implies an "active" reader), you will be a participant with the author, perhaps supplying the other voice, or alternative point of view, when it's missing.

Regarding the unresolved question of why Duke would not continue with drummer Bobby Durham, the Maestro would no doubt feel comfortable with a "swing machine" like Bobby, a favorite drummer of Oscar Peterson and Monty Alexander.Not enough has been made of the impact of Oscar Peterson on swing.He made the absolutely synchronous, unfailing statement of the bass note and hi-hat a requirement for a sense of swing so kinetic it elevates the listener, no less than a meditating follower of the Maharishi, right off the floor.The "freedom" communicated by the Oscar-modeled rhythm section belies the drill-team requisites to its achievement.Duke's sense of time is looser, more related to the New Orleans bands, than the rhythm sections-on-ball-bearings that followed in Oscar's wake.My guess is that Duke felt like Bobby was climbing all over him and preferred a drummer who was a tad more forgiving with his beat.In fact, Duke's use of the rhythm section more often brings to mind Monk than Oscar.]

A Google search led me to this book, which has been printed on the internet, and I soon found myself addicted.I never knew that Bobby Durham (phenomenal drummer) had played half a year with the band let alone been fired by Duke (who is said never to have fired any musician).So what if the book relies on too few interviews, is not reliable, is less than 100% positive in its praise of Duke Ellington.I'd rather hear what Mercer Ellington or Lawrence Brown actually had to say than read another one of those faux new journalism accounts in which one author presumes to tell us what Miles Davis and all of his detractors actually "thought."If you're aware of Duke Ellington's significance and accomplishments you can't help but welcome one more piece of the puzzle, regardless of how small a piece it is.I started trying to print the thing before realizing the cost to my sleep, stamina, and finances.Thank goodness, I found a copy on Amazon.Ten previous reviewers have given the book a single star.From the pages I read I can tell you right now that there's no way it can been less than three.And if, after receiving and reading the entire book, I'm wrong, you'll be the first to hear about it--and I promise not to attempt reselling it.

Odd
I found this book reasonably entertaining, approaching, you might say "attacking", Duke Ellington from a psychologizing angle. Interesting. Few people ever really knew Ellington, and the ones who did didn't talk much about him, at least not in any revealing way. And the man was clearly an affable narcissist, with a tendency to be passively cruel to band members and some family members. If this personality hadn't existed, Thomas Mann would have invented him, with a little help from Freud. And of course there's nothing wrong with taking a figure so frequently deified down a couple of pegs. So the author's tack seemed, for the nonce, acceptable.
Unfortunately, I noticed quite a few oddities, in dates, attribution of composer credit, and elsewhere. I also wondered how this guy could have interviewed all these old timers, this late in the era. And I'd never heard of a trombonist of this name who played with Benny Carter, Luis Russell etc. in the Forties. And though I'm a thorough Ellington fan and personal admirer, I'm no scholar. So I had to wait till I stumbled on the "brief" by Steven Lasker, who is a scholar, to realize what a hoax this book is. Stick "depanorama stratemann lasker lawrence routledge" into the google search engine. You'll get a issue of the Duke Ellington Music Society bulletin from late 2001. Read it before you buy this book.
Routledge didn't originate the contract on this book. They bought it from some other outfit. Routledge used to be a standard issue publisher of unreadable academic jabber of the paramarxist school, parasitizing on English universities. In the last few years they've tried to break into the American popular market. Hence opportunistic stuff like this.
There's a Duke Ellington industry out there, appealing to scholars, musicologists and plain enthusiasts of good music. So there are bogus reissues on CD and preposterous books like this. The same thing happens with Mark Twain; you come to expect it. But damn Routledge for getting involved in the seamy side of it as they scramble to find a place in the dwindling high end market.

Mighty subject through a very narrow lens
Duke Ellington is such a towering subject that any book about him contains some items of interest. This is the first full length biography I've read on Ellington, although I did take a course with Mark Tucker, author of "The Ellington Reader" in college. This book is written by a psychologist and a musician of the 1940s, not a researcher, and the previous reviewers have criticized him for a lack of research. Lawrence relies heavily on Sonny Greer and Mercer Ellington as interview subjects and there may be the value in skimming through this biography. As a drummer, the story of how Greer got his magnificent drum kit that you see in all of the 30s and 40s footage of the Ellington brought me a smile. Stories like this lead me to believe that Lawrence would have been better served facilitating a memoir of Sonny Greer and some of his musical contacts [he admits that he was trying to do this until Hentoff's "Hear me Talkin' to Ya came out in his introduction] than writing a flawed biography of Ellington, a towering figure who deserves a thorough scholarly biography like the one that Lewis Porter did for John Coltrane.

The book has two other big flaws. First, the 50s and 60s are really quickly treated and he will go through a year of the band's life in a couple of pages. I personally was first drawn to Ellington's music through this musically rich period and while the creation of some of Ellington's key suites like the Far East Suite is mentioned, I would have liked a better sense of what life in the band was like at this time.

The biggest problem, here, however, is that Lawrence the psychologist intervenes at times and leaves the reader with a sour taste in his mouth. I do not need speculation on the psychological nature and "narcissistic" elements of Ellington's personality. I'd rather get detailed research as to what happened in his personal life from varied sources and allow me, the intelligent reader, to draw my own conclusions. The fact that the last paragraph of the book concludes with a statement of his "profound narcissism" and how Ellington just wanted "everybody in the palm of my hand", diminishes the ultimate musical and spiritual legacy that Ellington left behind.

Right now, I don't see a major full length biography of Ellington on the market that I can completely endorse. This book has some value as a quick, though flawed, overview of the band while introducing members like the great Sonny Greer.

2 stars.

--SD

Shame on Routledge
This abysmally inaccurate "biography" should never have been published.It is obvious that neither Routledge nor A.H. Lawrence had any reverence for the facts, despite the liberal use of plagarized passages from authoritative works. There are many books on Ellington that are well worth having. Not this one.

Travesty In Blue
A. H. Lawrence has written a book filled with errors on almost every page.Lawrence's lack of scholarship will seriously call into question the lack of Routledge's editorial integrity if not its motives - unless the publisher decides to recall the product.

If you really want to see this book, wait until it is remaindered or piled on the "free" table - that should be soon. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

duke ellington on compact disc
I have read many books about Duke Ellington, and found this book to be by far and away the most informative in this CD age. It's cross indexes are excellent, and the number of CD releases at the time this book was published (1994) is very thorough. It belongs on the shelf with other discographies. This book has been very helpful to me in my CD collecting of the maestro. ... Read more

Product Description
New York City, uptown, the 1920s. Poets, writers, dancers, and musicians came to Harlem to experience the excitement of the jazz age and to see the cabarets and floor shows at the Apollo Theatre and the Cotton Club. People flocked to Harlem to hear the genius of band leader Duke Ellington, thejazz-poetry of Langston Hughes, and the romantic lyricism of Countee Cullen. The Harlem Renaissance produced some of the 20th century’s greatest and most influential artists, figures at the center of the spectacular jazz era. These African American artists created a new American sound and a new American culture. This unique recording tells the Harlem Renaissance story through the spoken word and live music of some of its most famous works. Experience it all yourself in…
THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE REMEMBERED

Foreword and Afterword by Jonathan Gross, Ph.D. —
Hear the story of Harlem, told through the words of its poets and the sound of its musicians. Imagine yourself in the Cotton Club where Duke Ellington and his famous orchestra performed their hit song, “Take the A Train”. Listen to Langston Hughes’s “Theme for English B” recited aloud while the strains of “Mood Indigo” play from a distant radio. Learn what the world was like in the 1920s when the Harlem Renaissance was at its height, and why it is still so important today. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (19)

Pleasing, interesting, but not profound.
I found this an interesting little compilation of Harlem pieces. There was music and poetry and literature. I really helped give a feel to the time period to hear it all aloud and together.The sound quality is okay and could be better at times. And some of the music choices were questionable, but without a doubt it really helped to illustrate the richness of the artistic pallet that was being used at the time of the Harlem renaissance and hearing thepoems read aloud alongside the music really did a great job of pinpointing the cadence that is hard to pick up on in the written word.

Definitely something useful for say an American Studies class, or American History, Black History month, etc.

This brief (less than an hour) "audio book" is more of a radio play with music.
This product is described as an audio book and, as such, you expect someone to read aloud the text of a book. In this case it's more of a radio script with musical selections included between the narratives. Since it fits neatly into an hour, it might have been made to a public radio broadcast. And if that were what it was, that would be fine. But as a commercial product it falls short. And, as others have said at length, in their reviews here, the "narrator" has a voice that doesn't exactly draw you in.

The concept of narration with full musical excerpts to illustrate the music portion of the Harlem Renaissance is a good idea. With a longer running time and more engaging narrator (or narrators), this could be an interesting project.

Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"

Strange Concoction
I was intrigued by the promise of this CD, which seemed to be an integration of the poetry and music that served as the heartbeat of the Harlem Renaissance.Yet the delivery in the final product falls short of fulfilling that promise.Instead, it is an odd mishmash of music and poetry that doesn't seem to have an easily identifiable place.

The CD begins with an introduction by Jonathan Gross, who does not have the most compelling voice for this sort of work, that glosses briefly over the history of the Harlem Renaissance.The rest of the CD is made up of readings of poems by Langston Hughes and performances of Duke Ellington's music, interspersed with further commentary.While "Mack" Jay Jordan's renditions of Ellington's songs are for the most part very good, the poetry readings seem out of synch - some are read too fast, some are overwhelmed by the music.Not to mention that fact that this project limits the Harlem Renaissance down to only these two artists, forsaking other greats of the time period in both music and literature.

I was hoping to use this CD in my American Literature class, but at over an hour in length, it is too long for the normal class period.Plus, with the additional commentary throughout the CD, there is no good breaking point to use even snipets of it rather than trying to use the whole."The Harlem Renaiassance Remembered" is an intriguing concept, and perhaps would work much better as a series of audio works that feature other artists from the time period.As it stands, it is too narrow in focus and too disjointed to fulfill the promise its title implies.

Loved It!
I did read the reviewer who said this was not "deep" or "wide" enough; I confess, I am no historian, nor have I ever lived in Harlem, so perhaps that is true.But I thoroughly enjoyed this entire thing!I found it uplifting and thought-provoking.It has made me more determined than ever to take a tour of Harlem, next time I am back east.

wow
Fantastic CD! This period in history was so dynamic, groundbreaking...I read/see/listen to everything I can about this era. Everyone should listen to this! ... Read more

Product Description
Duke Ellington (1899-1974) was one of the most romantic, flamboyant, and charismatic figures in the world of jazz.This distinctive biography draws on rare archival material and a wealth of Ellington memorabilia to re-create in vivid narrative and illustration the jazz great's life and musical artistry against the background of his colorful times. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Musicians tell Duke's story - no holds barred.
There are a handful of books about jazz which provide musical insights and feelings and opinions which pull the reader into the lives of those who do the job of making music - still probably the best is HEAR ME TALKIN' TO YA edited by Shapiro and Hentoff along with Stuart Nicholson author of A PORTRAIT OF DUKE ELLINGTON Reminiscing in TEMPO. Another is STRAIGHT LIFE, the story of ART PEPPER. This is not to deny the brilliance of FOUR LIVES IN THE BEBOP BUSINESS or MR JELLY LORD, but it is hard to match the excitement of reading the words of those who made the music, judiciously edited of course. A PORTRAIT OF DUKE ELLINGTON is up there with the best books I've read on jazz. Its added value is that its subject is one of the most important musicians of the 20th century. Its fascination is how his creative juices were pushed by the imperatives of the time - deadlines were something the Duke apparently thrived on. On the other hand, pigeonholing may have held him back from becoming an even greater composer. Some of the great scenes in the book include one recounted by Sonny Greer on a performance in England when the band preceding them on the programme suddenly stopped in the middle of its performance to play God Save the King - The Prince of Wales (nicknamed the Prince of Wails by Fats Waler I believe) had entered the auditorium. But this was nothing to the reception that the Ellington band received when it performed. They were not used to ten minute standing ovations. There's no getting past the fact that Europeans, or music lovers outside the States, seem to have taken "jazz" or "modern improvised music" much more seriously than the place of its birth. This may still be the case today. A PORTRAIT OF DUKE ELLINGTON also contains editorial factual comments, examples of bill posters, advertising, and a series of FBI Memoes which would be hilarious if they were not so frighteningly stupid. A PORTRAIT OF DUKE ELLINGTON is also an excellent social history of the time from the 20's to the 70's, at least from the perspective of members of the Ellington Orchestra. Vivid and touching portraits abound, including Junior Raglin, Bubber Miley, and Sweet Pea Strayhorn. There are a few guffaws, many chuckles and a few tears in this wonderful book. Especially for music lovers, but any intelligent reader would find much to enjoy about one story of America's greatest cultural contribution to the century past.

it HAS got that swing
This is an extremely readable work. The author has compiled extracts from interviews with Ellington, band members and family spanning his life and career, presenting the material as an oral history.The reader is given a strong insight into how Ellington worked and what made him such a great and unique composer, band leader and human being.I found this book to be extremely involving, often moving me to laughter or tears. I would only complain that the writer has perhaps done too good a job editorially with his material in that he could have risked boring us a little by including much more. The upside of this is that the book should be enjoyable to anyonewho has even the remotest interest in the man, the music or the period of his life.This book is an extremely fitting testament to a man who is without doubt one of the foremost figures in 20th Century culture . ... Read more

Product Description
This collection provides you with solid, clear and accessible solo arrangements for 11 of the of the most memorable jazz standards written by one of the most influential composers in jazz history. Every song is presented with the guitar part, written in standard notation and tablature, combined with the lead sheet for analysis. All arrangements are demonstrated and included on the CD ... Read more

Product Description
A superb new celebration of the art of Duke Ellington, gathering together his very finest and best known songs and piano compositions. Includes: Take The A Train, Perdido, Satin Doll, and 17 more. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Ellington's work and milieu under the microscope
Klaus Stratemann has built this work around Duke Ellington's appearances on film, which began with the highly evocative "Black & Tan" in December of 1929, featuring the Cotton Club chorus girl Freddi Washington, and ended with such bagatelles of American culture as his plugging of Hammond organs on network television.
Have you ever heard of "soundies"? These were short music videos customers could play in kiosks for a nickel, popular in the early Forties. Duke made several. You can see an example or two in the Smithsonian's Museum of American History, and read how they fit into the music industry in this book.
Did you know that Billie Holiday made a movie with Ellington in 1935? This was the "Symphony in Black", one of the first artefacts of American pop culture to suggest that Black artistic endeavor might be worthy of attention or even romanticizing.
In addition to the films, the author has documented all of Ellington's performances, in New York and every small burg across America and abroad, not just those which were recorded, thereby filling in the gaps between the dates found in Timner's Ellingtonia and the multi-volume Italian work D.E.S.O.R. The entirety has been annotated with extracts from contemporary media as well as the author's own assessments of the performance's significance in the short and long term. Ellington's business activity and the comings and goings of major and subbing musicians are traced daily, sometimes from morning to evening. Particular compositions and recordings are contextualized with a thoroughness I have not seen previously and it becomes possible to sense what Ellington's music meant to the average listener, in Harlem or elsewhere.
This work should be of great value not only to Ellington enthusiasts, but anyone seriously interested in a detailed look at the world of Black big band music, the popular music recording industry or mid century American popular culture. It appears to be available from Storyville Records in Denmark.
I am not aware that anyone has written a work of "historical fiction" about Duke Ellington yet, but this work would certainly be necessary for that project. ... Read more

Product Description
Twenty-five years ago in his hit song, "Sir Duke," Stevie Wonder sings: "Music knows it is and always will be one of the things that life just won't quit. / Here are some of music's basic pioneers that time will not allow us to forget: / There's Basie, Miller, Satchmo, and the King of All, Sir Dukel/ And with a voice like Ella's ringing out, there's no way the band can lose! / You can feel it all over!!" To say that Ellington was a prominent jazz-band leader of the twentieth century would be like saying William Shakespeare was simply a prominent English playwright of the time. This book begins with personal reflections as well as the life before going on to consider--through anecdote, musical scholarship, and personal interviews--Ellington's profound and direct influence on an amazing range of pop artists: Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan,Miles Davis (who, in the ultimate tribute, had himself interred next to The Duke in New York's Woodlawn Cemetery), Sun Ra, James Brown, Sly Stone, George Clinton, Prince, Frank Zappa, Charles Mingus, Ravi Shankar, and others. ... Read more

Product Description

The story of the African American contributions to the symphonic jazz vogue of the 1920s through the 1940s.

During the early decades of the twentieth century symphonic jazz involved an expansive family of music that emulated, paralleled, and intersected the jazz tradition. Though now largely forgotten, symphonic jazz was both a popular music---arranging tradition and a repertory of hybrid concert works, both of which reveled in the mildly irreverent interbreeding of white and black and high and low music. While the roots of symphonic jazz can be traced to certain black ragtime orchestras of the teens, the idiom came to maturation in the music of 1920s white dance bands.

Through a close examination of the music of Duke Ellington and James P. Johnson, Ellington Uptown uncovers compositions that have usually fallen in the cracks between concert music, jazz, and popular music. It also places the concert works of these two iconic figures in context through an investigation both of related compositions by black and white peers and of symphonic jazz---style arrangements from a diverse number of early sound films, Broadway musicals, Harlem nightclub floor shows, and select interwar radio programs.

Both Ellington and Johnson were part of a close-knit community of several generations of Harlem musicians. Older figures like Will Marion Cook, Will Vodery, W. C. Handy, and James Reese Europe were the generation of black musicians that initially broke New York entertainment's racial barriers in the first two decades of the century. By the 1920s, Cook, Vodery, and Handy had become mentors to Harlem's younger musicians. This generational connection is a key for understanding Johnson’s and Ellington's ambitions to use the success of Harlem's white-oriented entertainment trade as a springboard for establishing a black concert music tradition based on Harlem jazz and popular music.

John Howland is Assistant Professor of Music at Rutgers University and the cofounder and current editor-in-chief of the journal Jazz Perspectives. This work has been supported through several prestigious awards, including the Lloyd Hibberd Publication Endowment Fund of the American Musicological Society.