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The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington Edward Green (editor) Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015 320 pp. 53 music examples Hardback, $90 Paperback, $29.99 Adobe eBook reader, $24.00
"Such music is not only a new art form, but a new reason for living." So said Blaise Cendrars as quoted by the writer Richard O. Boyer of the work of the great composer and performer Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington. This is music of the heart, not merely jazz, and not gospel, but really a new kind of American music, born from suffering and joy, nurtured by great musical mentors, and coming out as something pure and, yes, even sacred. It is marvelous, wonderful joy-in-sound. This is the music of Edward Kennedy Ellington, nicknamed "Duke" due to his noble bearing and elegant attire. As for the sacred, more on that later.
A new book appeared in 2015 that serves as a handy source of information about the great master. The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington is a scholarly yet warmhearted review of Duke Ellington and his music in all its various aspects, including Ellington's early life and musical training, on through the Cotton Club years all the way through the Sacred Concerts of his last decade. This is an important new work about the man some say was the most important composer of the twentieth century.
The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington is a book in three parts and seventeen chapters, plus introduction, covering all aspects of the composer's music, and many features of his life as a man. Included are a chronology of Duke Ellington's life, a select bibliography, an index, and numerous brief musical examples. The list of contributors is too long to list in full but includes such notables as David Berger, Anna Harwell Celenza, Bill Dobbins, John Howland, Dan Morganstern, Brian Priestly, and Evan Spring. The editor is accomplished Ellington scholar Edward Green of the Manhattan School of Music and the Aesthetic Realism Foundation. Associate editors are Walter van de Ceur, and Olly W. Wilson, also esteemed scholars.
Part I, "Ellington in Context," covers topics such as Ellington's formative years, his life through the eyes of his nephew, his...