Book review: Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, by Terry Teachout
Edward Kennedy Ellington was most well known as "Duke" - and he indeed brought a regal air to the world of jazz from the 1920s to his passing in 1974.
by Terry Teachout
Gotham Books
4 stars
Mathew Scott
Edward Kennedy Ellington was most well known as "Duke" - and he indeed brought a regal air to the world of jazz from the 1920s to his passing in 1974. When you tap into Ellington's vast musical legacy, you are left with a taste for life itself and for the thrill the man so obviously felt in living the highs and lows of day-to-day existence.
Like his music, mystery surrounded the musician throughout his career and, as biographer and playwright Terry Teachout reveals in this meticulously researched work, no one ever seemed to be quite sure what the source was for anything.
Ellington seemed to have shaped his life - and his life stories - in the same manner by which others would later shape his music: he adapted things to suit time and place, mood and audience. Where it all came from is anyone's guess, but Teachout shows, through anecdotes and memories, that the musician was both hunter and gatherer.
Ellington forged relationships just as he sought out musicians and musical collaborators - often simply because of what he alone could gain from the experience. And so a series of riffs laid down by, say, someone on trumpet just fiddling away wasting time in the studio would later emerge fully fleshed out as one of Ellington's own signature tunes.
Credit was more often than not never really acknowledged, but through sheer force of personality - and genius - people didn't seem to care. For them, being part of the Ellington experience was enough.