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Justin Desmangles, host —
New Day Jazz
Photo: Al Young
New Day Jazz
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Press release from the University of Chicago Press
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, pathbreaking 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.
With Duke Ellington’s America, Harvey G. Cohen paints a vivid picture of Ellington’s life and times, taking him from his youth in the black middle class enclave of Washington, D.C., to the heights of worldwide acclaim. Mining extensive archives, many never before available, plus new interviews with Ellington’s friends, family, band members, and business associates, Cohen illuminates his constantly evolving approach to composition, performance, and the music business—as well as issues of race, equality and religion. Ellington’s own voice, meanwhile, animates the book throughout, giving Duke Ellington’s America an intimacy and immediacy unmatched by any previous account.
By far the most thorough and nuanced portrait yet of this towering figure, Duke Ellington’s America highlights Ellington’s importance as a figure in American history as well as in American music.
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© John Pratt/Keystone Features — Getty ImagesThe idea of a substantial book about a major musical figure that pays relatively little attention to his music might seem counterintuitive — or, to put it less politely, pointless. That “Duke Ellington’s America” succeeds as well as it does is a tribute both to its author and to its subject.
Arguing that Duke Ellington’s “significance went far beyond the musical realm,” Harvey G. Cohen, a cultural historian who teaches at King’s College London, places Ellington’s life as a public figure and “culture hero” in a larger social and political context. Others have written about his connection to the civil rights movement, or the many State Department tours on which he and his remarkable band functioned as cultural ambassadors during the cold war. Cohen makes such matters his primary concern.
To read the rest, go to the New York Times Book Review original
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Courtesy photo
Visit the Charles Lloyd Blogspot
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Listen and watch Dorothy Darr’s video of Charles Lloyd and his ‘New’ Quartet
Click here for the full review at Ausjazz Blog
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A LITTLE ABOUT BEYOND BAROQUE
Beyond Baroque is one of the United States’ leading independent Literary/Arts Centers and public spaces dedicated to literary and cultural production, contact, interaction, and community building. Founded in 1968, it is based in the Old Town Hall in Venice, California, near the Pacific Ocean. It offers a program of readings, free workshops, publishing, bookstore, archiving, and education.
The Center launched its own imprint, Beyond Baroque Books, in 1998, dedicated to emerging, overlooked, out of print, and experimental writing, as well as the history and legacy of experimental and alternative writing, poetry, and the arts in Los Angeles.
Call 310.822.3006 for more information.
www.beyondbaroque.org
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© Tom Killion | The Golden Gate from Grizzly Peak
Diesel’s cool literary video
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