Few American artists in any medium have enjoyed the international and lasting cultural impact of Duke Ellington. From jazz standards such as Mood Indigo and Don't Get Around Much Anymore, to his longer, more orchestral suites, to his leadership of the stellar big band he toured and performed with for decades after most big bands folded, Ellington represented a singular, path-breaking force in music over the course of a half century. At the same time, as one of the most prominent black public figures in history, Ellington demonstrated leadership on questions of civil rights, equality, and America's role in the world. Drawing on extensive research and a wealth of new interviews, Duke Ellington's America paints a vivid 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.
Harvey G. Cohen, a cultural historian, is associate professor of cultural and creative industries at King's College London.
Title: Duke Ellington's America
Author: Cohen, Harvey G.
ISBN: 9780226112640
Binding:
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Publication Date: 2011-10-21
Number of Pages: 704
Weight: 0.9301 kg
Harvey G. Cohen's new book illuminates Ellington's career as never before, and also helps to deepen our understanding of larger trends and issues in American politics and culture. No previous book on Ellington has followed the money so rigorously, laying bare the interworkings of art and capital. (Times Literary Supplement) The book makes nuanced sense of the hard choices at every turn, in years when it often fell to Ellington to pioneer new audiences and new venues, and to insist on a level of dignity rarely accorded to African-American artists. (Geoffrey O'Brien, New York Review of Books) Cohen's volume... is substantial, richly sourced, intelligent.... Unlike many other writers on Ellington, Cohen gives proper attention to all phases of Ellington's career, and in so doing unveils information that is new or has been overlooked.... This is an important work and one that Ellington scholarship will benefit from and draw on for new debates. (Times Higher Education) Duke Ellington's America attempts to get under the skin of this apparently most imperturbable of men, and the results... are fascinating.... An extremely intelligent and formidably documented book - a welcome change from much that has been published about Ellington. (Claudia Roth Pierpont, New Yorker)
