What do you think?
Rate this book
Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington
A major new biography of Duke Ellington from the acclaimed author of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was the greatest jazz composer of the twentieth century—and an impenetrably enigmatic personality whom no one, not even his closest friends, claimed to understand. The grandson of a slave, he dropped out of high school to become one of the world’s most famous musicians, a showman of incomparable suavity who was as comfortable in Carnegie Hall as in the nightclubs where he honed his style. He wrote some fifteen hundred compositions, many of which, like "Mood Indigo" and "Sophisticated Lady," remain beloved standards, and he sought inspiration in an endless string of transient lovers, concealing his inner self behind a smiling mask of flowery language and ironic charm.
As the biographer of Louis Armstrong, Terry Teachout is uniquely qualified to tell the story of the public and private lives of Duke Ellington. Duke peels away countless layers of Ellington’s evasion and public deception to tell the unvarnished truth about the creative genius who inspired Miles Davis to say, "All the musicians should get together one certain day and get down on their knees and thank Duke."
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was the greatest jazz composer of the twentieth century—and an impenetrably enigmatic personality whom no one, not even his closest friends, claimed to understand. The grandson of a slave, he dropped out of high school to become one of the world’s most famous musicians, a showman of incomparable suavity who was as comfortable in Carnegie Hall as in the nightclubs where he honed his style. He wrote some fifteen hundred compositions, many of which, like "Mood Indigo" and "Sophisticated Lady," remain beloved standards, and he sought inspiration in an endless string of transient lovers, concealing his inner self behind a smiling mask of flowery language and ironic charm.
As the biographer of Louis Armstrong, Terry Teachout is uniquely qualified to tell the story of the public and private lives of Duke Ellington. Duke peels away countless layers of Ellington’s evasion and public deception to tell the unvarnished truth about the creative genius who inspired Miles Davis to say, "All the musicians should get together one certain day and get down on their knees and thank Duke."
Audiobook
First published October 17, 2013
94 people are currently reading
1123 people want to read
About the author
Terry Teachout
25 books45 followersTerry Teachout is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the chief culture critic of Commentary. His latest book, "Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong," will be published on December 2 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He blogs about the arts at www.terryteachout.com. His other books include "The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken," "All in the Dances: A Brief Life of George Balanchine," and "A Terry Teachout Reader." "
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 117 reviews
March 18, 2019
I am disappointed in Teachout's "Duke". I admired his book on Louis Armstrong, not only because he writes elegant prose but also because his insights illuminate the complex character of Armstrong, making him more real to me now than he was before I read Teachout's book. Also, I like the way he embraced Louis' later music--the stuff high-minded critics often dismiss as mere pandering--as a natural extension of a popular art. Teachout obviously loves the man Armstrong, and he communicates this love to the reader in every sentence he writes. But Ellington? Well, the Duke is a different matter. I wonder whether Teachout even likes Ellington; I doubt he could ever love him.
Ellington can be hard to love. In addition to his womanizing (Armstrong was guilty of this too), Ellington was vain, secretive, devious, manipulative, quick to take credit for the artistic contributions of others, and fond of grandiose statements about his artistic intentions, statements that are often little more than hot air. He was also a chronic procrastinator, and Teachout does an excellent job of demonstrating how this vice prevented him from composing longer works, and hindered him from perfecting the few he did compose.
Is it necessary for a good biographer to love his subject? No . . . and yet--particularly when the subject is an artist of genius--the writer should at least appreciate his strengths, assess his weaknesses, and understand how both contribute to his unique achievement. It is here—in failing to demonstrate their contribution to Duke’s unique achievement--that Teachout fails his subject and his reader.
Ellington was undoubtedly a great composer, but a great composer for one particular band made up of certain unique musicians. He was a genius for knowing each musician's characteristic sounds, identifying new sounds as they arose by accident or improvisation, evaluating such sounds and articulating them into themes, and then transforming all this into successful original compositions. The Duke’s greatness is inevitably bound up with the way his musicianship triumphs through his manipulative methods, consolidating each musician’s burst of creativity into an artistic whole. He knew their worth, and paid them handsomely, but is it any wonder—as disagreeable as it may seem to us—that he had no qualms putting the name “Ellington” on these miracles of collective composition?
Two stories--neither told by Teachout--help make the Duke’s genius clear.
The first story involves a road trip. Duke was in the next room—I think they were on a train--while the boys in the band were fooling around. The slide trombonist picked up the valve trombone (or the other way 'round), and within seconds Duke opened the door, stuck out his head, and said, "What was that?" Duke had heard a new sound, and he needed to know what that sound was, right away, so he could use it.
The second story concerns the first recording of "Cottontail." Ben Webster, the tenor saxophone player, was a soft-spoken man who had a nasty temper when he drank. The night before the band was due in the studio, Duke called up Ben and invited him out for drinks (very unusual behavior for the Duke). Ben, hung over and still half-drunk the next morning, doubted he was up for a recording session, but Duke said they would just rehearse a few tunes first without turning on the equipment, so he could warm up until he was comfortable. Ben reluctantly agreed. The band began with “Cottontail,” a song they had never recorded before, with Ben taking an extended solo. You guessed it: Ellington lied. The take was recorded after all, and Webster played his solo with raw power and an unprecedented fierceness that he--or anybody else--has seldom equaled. Ellington always insisted that, whenever Webster performed the song with his band, he should repeat that original solo note for note.
I don’t think it is a coincidence that Teachout omits these two anecdotes. His book is excellent at accumulating details that show Ellington at work. But when it comes to demonstrating how his superb ear, practical knowledge of his musician’s weaknesses, and his willingness to exploit those weaknesses combine to reinforce his artistry, Teachout often fails to make the connection. He is very good at seeing the Duke’s failings, but not nearly so good at seeing how the Duke could transmute the Ellington band's base materials into his own peculiar—and transcendent—kind of gold.
July 12, 2013
This is one of the best biographies I've ever read. Not only for fans of Mr Ellington, but as a study of 20th century music and attitudes. 60 or so pages in, I got rid of my other books on The Duke. This is the best one. I agree with Miles, that once a year, everyone who loves jazz should get down one bended knee to thank Duke Ellington
January 30, 2017
I appreciate the amount of research Teachout did and the detailed information he provided, but, overall, this was an off-putting attempt at a biography of Ellington. Teachout had obviously formed a negative impression of his subject and it colored his presentation throughout. It is one thing for a biographer to quote both positive and negative statements by those who knew the man and to share facts about his behavior, both good and bad; it is another to say upfront "He was a cheating, plagiarizing womanizer who manipulated people and despised women" and then keep harping on it throughout the book. Tell us the facts and let us make up our own minds. Teachout's obvious distaste for Ellington means that I could not trust that the negative stories he compiled are the only ones he came across; there could have been just as many positive stories available that he chose to exclude due to his bias. Was Teachout consciously or unconsciously tearing down Ellington out of a preference for Armstrong? I love Satchmo, too, as a performer and a person, as far as I can tell from what's out there, but Ellington was a hugely influential composer who wanted to bring African-American music, especially as it reflected the African-American experience, out of the shadows of white mainstream culture and into its own. That makes him pretty important, in my opinion! Teachout does make that clear in this book, but he muddies his telling of the story by repeatedly expressing his personal disgust for the man.
March 25, 2014
a marvelous biography with musical detail which didn't overwhelm this unschooled reader but enhanced my understanding and appreciation. Often I read with computer at hand to listen to recordings as Teachout described them. Try it yourself. You'll love it madly.
December 3, 2013
This is one of the best written, well researched, captivating biographies I have ever read. It's as much about the history of American music and Black history as it is about Music and the Man. Reading Terry Teachout,the drama critic for "The Wall Street Journal," is like having your favorite professor give you a crash course in music. My benefit was a learning I didn't think I was capable of acquiring. Admirable, and astonishing, he's that good.
October 8, 2015
Good bio of Duke. My one gripe is that Teachout tells us over and over that Duke lacked formal training in arranging and orchestration and this had a negative effect on his writing. My thought is that maybe that is what made Duke Duke! The input on Duke's use of Billy Strayhorn and other sidemen has been common knowledge for years. So nothing new here, but it is a good readable bio of a great musician.
March 10, 2018
I learned a great deal about Ellington in this book. What I especially appreciated was Teachout's listings of recordings and films. That caused me to stop and YouTube those that I was unfamiliar with.
Doing so gave me a particular perspective and joy with the book.
I Tweeted this to Terry and he responded 'Well that's the right way to read it!' Agreed, and you should as well.
I look forward to reading Terry's Satchmo bio.
Doing so gave me a particular perspective and joy with the book.
I Tweeted this to Terry and he responded 'Well that's the right way to read it!' Agreed, and you should as well.
I look forward to reading Terry's Satchmo bio.
May 2, 2019
A very readable and enjoyable book about one of the great American aural artists. Well-researched, but I don't think the author captured the full aspect of this brilliant composers' work. Duke Ellington is a huge subject matter, and he may be one of those subject matters that need numerous books. Still, it got me to reach out to my record collection as well as YouTube to hear the more obscure works.
September 26, 2018
DUKE
This will be on my list of best books. Terry Teachout gives us a brilliant and honest look at the life of one of America’s greatest composers and musicians, yet one that likely would not be on those lists of most Americans, many of whom think only of classical music when the word “composer” is mentioned. Yet, in this day and age, we are quick to recognize and honor the likes of John Williams, whose music is best known via the silver screen. Ellington belongs in the same category.
We learn, through Teachout, that others may also be members of that club. We do not know of these men because of Ellington, who used their music but did not give them the proper credit for writing it. Indeed, TAKE THE A TRAIN, the signature piece of Duke Ellington, was likely written by Billy Strayhorn, who worked for Ellington.
Duke reminds me of a book on Mozart I started about twenty years ago but never finished. That book was as dry as dust. The similarity is in the content: both authors thoroughly analyze the music of their gifted subjects, but Teachout does so in a manner that inspires one to look for recordings of the pieces. I recommend that the reader have access to an online music source. I used YouTube and was rewarded with vintage Ellington.
We learn a bit about Ellington’s private life, although Teachout does not dwell on it ad nauseum. Ellington had a veracious appetite for food and women and we learn of the main women in the Duke’s life.
Teachout is not one who lavishes false praise for Ellington’s music. Like the critics who wrote of Ellington’s performances, he is brutally honest in his analysis of Ellington’s work, calling a spade a spade, if you will.
My only complaint would be in its editing, not in the content. The asterisks that signified footnotes were too small. Often I came to the end of a page with a footnote at the bottom, but not having seen what it was attached to. Aside from that minor foible, I loved this book.
Five stars
This will be on my list of best books. Terry Teachout gives us a brilliant and honest look at the life of one of America’s greatest composers and musicians, yet one that likely would not be on those lists of most Americans, many of whom think only of classical music when the word “composer” is mentioned. Yet, in this day and age, we are quick to recognize and honor the likes of John Williams, whose music is best known via the silver screen. Ellington belongs in the same category.
We learn, through Teachout, that others may also be members of that club. We do not know of these men because of Ellington, who used their music but did not give them the proper credit for writing it. Indeed, TAKE THE A TRAIN, the signature piece of Duke Ellington, was likely written by Billy Strayhorn, who worked for Ellington.
Duke reminds me of a book on Mozart I started about twenty years ago but never finished. That book was as dry as dust. The similarity is in the content: both authors thoroughly analyze the music of their gifted subjects, but Teachout does so in a manner that inspires one to look for recordings of the pieces. I recommend that the reader have access to an online music source. I used YouTube and was rewarded with vintage Ellington.
We learn a bit about Ellington’s private life, although Teachout does not dwell on it ad nauseum. Ellington had a veracious appetite for food and women and we learn of the main women in the Duke’s life.
Teachout is not one who lavishes false praise for Ellington’s music. Like the critics who wrote of Ellington’s performances, he is brutally honest in his analysis of Ellington’s work, calling a spade a spade, if you will.
My only complaint would be in its editing, not in the content. The asterisks that signified footnotes were too small. Often I came to the end of a page with a footnote at the bottom, but not having seen what it was attached to. Aside from that minor foible, I loved this book.
Five stars
April 20, 2017
A man whose polished exterior rarely reflected what was going on inside, Duke Ellington was an auteur of the music world, who organized an orchestra of eccentric individual talents and played it like his own personal instrument. He was a master at recognizing and editing the abilities of others and to create settings for them where they and the band shone and reflected their glory on himself. As a relentless composer he plucked melodies and themes from wherever he heard them and gave them shapes and settings that were unique and far ahead of their times. Yet he was also a master procrastinator whose penchant for putting things off or doing things at the last minute sometimes sabotaged his talent. His urbane exterior, polished manners and drive to constantly compose also sometimes masked the fact that he wasn't as well-read, educated, or musically sophisticated as he liked to appear. Ellington was a complex and complicated man, both habitually driven and lazy, sophisticated and naively superstitious, brilliant and simple, honest and a poseur, moral and a hypocrite. Terry Teachout digs beneath the surface to give us a complete picture of a man whose public and private lives were at odds with the legend he created and who was rarely what he seemed, yet was a giant talent who changed music and the times in which he lived. A must-read! BH.
October 28, 2018
An excellent biography. As a music lover I've always known Ellington as a huge presence (the word GIANT for once, is totally deserved) but never really understood or appreciated his music. Now, after reading this book, I have a much better appreciation but more importantly feel like I know who Duke Ellington really was.
Unlike many music biographies which go the chronology of the artist's records or performances with annal detail and strictness, Teachnout gives us a genuine human and immensely respectful and sympathetic (not uncritical, by any means) portrait of an amazing human being.
I may never really get Ellington's music but I am so glad I read this book. One of the best biographies of a musician I've read.
Unlike many music biographies which go the chronology of the artist's records or performances with annal detail and strictness, Teachnout gives us a genuine human and immensely respectful and sympathetic (not uncritical, by any means) portrait of an amazing human being.
I may never really get Ellington's music but I am so glad I read this book. One of the best biographies of a musician I've read.
September 1, 2016
Well written, nice overview that doesn't get too bogged down in details, many tiny touches. Duke is a lonely, unknowable man, but his music is well-explained, his orchestras explained and traced. Very good general biography.
December 29, 2017
This book brings to life the greatest American composer to live, in the class of Beethoven and all other great composers throughout history. I also liked the insights into the times and people in his life, musicians, lovers, editors, and so on.
May 14, 2018
The life of Duke Ellington should have been interesting to me, a jazz fan. But this book often seemed cold, a boring recitation of concert dates and ho-hum musical analysis. Though it is thorough and well-researched, I had problems staying interested in the dry, textureless writing style.
December 2, 2013
A scholarly work with many references. Tremendous insight into the man, the band and the era.
November 26, 2018
I greatly appreciated that the biographer was fair, but tough when going over the life of Duke Ellington, and didn't shy away from controversial topics.
October 28, 2022
A bunch of impressions connected with this 2013 book, but not with each other:
– Because Terry Teachout was a white conservative and was often critical of Ellington in this book, there resulted a lot of back and forth about racism in response to this book. I read a lot of it. Of all of the writing on the ‘net about this, I think the review of this book on the blog Jazz History Online talked the most sense. Read it here.
– I have accumulated a tremendous backlog of “to-read” books here. Some days, when life feels overwhelming and I should be doing something more constructive, I take my electronic device down to the library. Once there, I attempt to find an older book from my long Goodreads “to-read” list that is sitting, in a dusty and unread analog edition, on the library’s shelves. It’s like a scavenger hunt. This is how I chose this book.
I added this book to my “to-read” list after reading about it in 2013 on a blog formerly known as “Brain Pickings”, now “The Marginalia” (I like the old name better). Read the entry that piqued my interest here.
The book inspired the same blogger to write a second entry a month later. This one was about Duke Ellington’s eating habits, as described in this very detailed book. Read the blog post here.
– I often read books because they are about something that I don’t know anything about. When I’m done, if I’m lucky, I know more than when I started, which is satisfying. Here, it is music. Of course, I listen to music and enjoy it, but there seems to be a lot going on in music which the casual listener (meaning, me) does not understand. When I don’t understand a topic, I like to try enter it through biography, because a good biography can be a good story with familiar reference points that all people in all ages and of all temperaments have in common, i.e., childhood, education, first love, success or lack of success in a career, etc. and can bring a subject to life in a unique way for the uninformed.
However, this book is not one of those biographies. You either have to know a lot about music already, or just have a lot of patience. This book has a lot of music jargon which, for me, was like so much white noise. It reminded me of those moments in the TV show/movie franchise “Star Trek”, in which moving forward the plot requires the insertion of plausible-sounding technobabble. The “Star Trek” writers who were insufficiently fluent in this jargon would just leave a hole in the script labelled [TECH], which would then be filled in by the specialist mandarins who were experts in the canon. Similarly, every time the author started to bang on about (for example) “color” in music, mentally I just envisioned a few lines on the page covered by a label [MUSIC] and moved on to the next bit that seemed to at least make a little bit of sense.
Today, I asked a friend of mine, who has worked as a professional musician and played musical instruments, including piano, for decades, to explain what “color” means in this context. She said she didn’t understand it herself. Maybe she was just blowing me off, but still, that made me feel better.
(To be fair to the author, I believe he attempts an explanation of “color” in this context, somewhere in the book. I didn’t understand that, either. That’s not Terry Teachout’s fault.)
I guess there’s a place in the world for books written by people in the know for other people in the know. Like this one.
– I also wanted to know “Is Duke Ellington really great?” The Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) believes he is. She believes that, long from now, if we all manage not to destroy ourselves and the world, people will look at our age, in which Ellington, while far from anonymous, is not held in especially high regard, with amazement at our lack of judgment, sort of like the way we find it difficult to believe that Shakespeare and Bach went through long periods during which they were not regarded as particularly noteworthy.
I think that Teachout would say, yes, Ellington is great, but then he spends a lot of time pointing out his shortcomings. Teachout thinks, I think, that Ellington could have benefitted from sitting down and learning from classically-trained musicians/composers/etc., but Ellington was busy frantically touring, partially to pay the bills and partially because he liked it better than the alternative.
I still don’t know if Ellington is great, but I agree that he seemed to miss many opportunities to create something that might live for the ages, in part because he seem to lack the ability to work slowly and methodically toward a deadline while taking constructive feedback to improve his work.
– Ellington had a strange and particular magic power. It reminded me of a character in one of those X-men movies that the LSW is making me go to. In this movie, a character can control fire, but he can’t start fire. So the character carries around a cigarette lighter wherever he goes. This resembles Ellington in the sense that, he might not be able to create memorable tunes in isolation, but he could listen to his sidemen play, pick out a musical hook from the solo of one of his sidemen, retain it, expand it, and turn the few passing notes from somebody’s solo into a money-spinning popular hit, for which he would take exclusive credit. That’s an interesting magic power.
– I enjoyed reading this book well enough, and the research is very impressive. Sometimes, though, reading it is like being with that guy I knew in college who was pretty smart and attracted attention to himself by saying the most provocative thing he could think of to a crowd of people, daring anyone to call him out on it. I lost touch with him a long time ago.
– Because Terry Teachout was a white conservative and was often critical of Ellington in this book, there resulted a lot of back and forth about racism in response to this book. I read a lot of it. Of all of the writing on the ‘net about this, I think the review of this book on the blog Jazz History Online talked the most sense. Read it here.
– I have accumulated a tremendous backlog of “to-read” books here. Some days, when life feels overwhelming and I should be doing something more constructive, I take my electronic device down to the library. Once there, I attempt to find an older book from my long Goodreads “to-read” list that is sitting, in a dusty and unread analog edition, on the library’s shelves. It’s like a scavenger hunt. This is how I chose this book.
I added this book to my “to-read” list after reading about it in 2013 on a blog formerly known as “Brain Pickings”, now “The Marginalia” (I like the old name better). Read the entry that piqued my interest here.
The book inspired the same blogger to write a second entry a month later. This one was about Duke Ellington’s eating habits, as described in this very detailed book. Read the blog post here.
– I often read books because they are about something that I don’t know anything about. When I’m done, if I’m lucky, I know more than when I started, which is satisfying. Here, it is music. Of course, I listen to music and enjoy it, but there seems to be a lot going on in music which the casual listener (meaning, me) does not understand. When I don’t understand a topic, I like to try enter it through biography, because a good biography can be a good story with familiar reference points that all people in all ages and of all temperaments have in common, i.e., childhood, education, first love, success or lack of success in a career, etc. and can bring a subject to life in a unique way for the uninformed.
However, this book is not one of those biographies. You either have to know a lot about music already, or just have a lot of patience. This book has a lot of music jargon which, for me, was like so much white noise. It reminded me of those moments in the TV show/movie franchise “Star Trek”, in which moving forward the plot requires the insertion of plausible-sounding technobabble. The “Star Trek” writers who were insufficiently fluent in this jargon would just leave a hole in the script labelled [TECH], which would then be filled in by the specialist mandarins who were experts in the canon. Similarly, every time the author started to bang on about (for example) “color” in music, mentally I just envisioned a few lines on the page covered by a label [MUSIC] and moved on to the next bit that seemed to at least make a little bit of sense.
Today, I asked a friend of mine, who has worked as a professional musician and played musical instruments, including piano, for decades, to explain what “color” means in this context. She said she didn’t understand it herself. Maybe she was just blowing me off, but still, that made me feel better.
(To be fair to the author, I believe he attempts an explanation of “color” in this context, somewhere in the book. I didn’t understand that, either. That’s not Terry Teachout’s fault.)
I guess there’s a place in the world for books written by people in the know for other people in the know. Like this one.
– I also wanted to know “Is Duke Ellington really great?” The Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) believes he is. She believes that, long from now, if we all manage not to destroy ourselves and the world, people will look at our age, in which Ellington, while far from anonymous, is not held in especially high regard, with amazement at our lack of judgment, sort of like the way we find it difficult to believe that Shakespeare and Bach went through long periods during which they were not regarded as particularly noteworthy.
I think that Teachout would say, yes, Ellington is great, but then he spends a lot of time pointing out his shortcomings. Teachout thinks, I think, that Ellington could have benefitted from sitting down and learning from classically-trained musicians/composers/etc., but Ellington was busy frantically touring, partially to pay the bills and partially because he liked it better than the alternative.
I still don’t know if Ellington is great, but I agree that he seemed to miss many opportunities to create something that might live for the ages, in part because he seem to lack the ability to work slowly and methodically toward a deadline while taking constructive feedback to improve his work.
– Ellington had a strange and particular magic power. It reminded me of a character in one of those X-men movies that the LSW is making me go to. In this movie, a character can control fire, but he can’t start fire. So the character carries around a cigarette lighter wherever he goes. This resembles Ellington in the sense that, he might not be able to create memorable tunes in isolation, but he could listen to his sidemen play, pick out a musical hook from the solo of one of his sidemen, retain it, expand it, and turn the few passing notes from somebody’s solo into a money-spinning popular hit, for which he would take exclusive credit. That’s an interesting magic power.
– I enjoyed reading this book well enough, and the research is very impressive. Sometimes, though, reading it is like being with that guy I knew in college who was pretty smart and attracted attention to himself by saying the most provocative thing he could think of to a crowd of people, daring anyone to call him out on it. I lost touch with him a long time ago.
February 6, 2025
Lots of great information on a genius composer and extremely charming man, but, similar to others, I felt like the author had a grudge against the Duke. I get presenting a complex portrait of a person, but it seemed like he took every opportunity he could to criticize Duke's music, take credit away from his accomplishments, and paint him as a bad person. Plenty of universally regarded masterpieces that the author shrugged off saying they are lightweight. That was offputting throughout, but Duke's life and music made the book worth it.
February 20, 2019
One of my heroes, guitarist Kenny Burrell loves Ellington so much that I had to read this very serviceable bio. However, this book sadly shows that Ellington also hurt many people and often by taking musical ideas from others he’d work with without properly crediting them. I did not know that the famed Cotton Club in Harlem where Duke took up a long residency was strangely a whites only club – Apart from giving the black cause his personal elegance as a symbol of racial aspiration, and giving a few of his instrumentals black names (Black, Brown and Beige, Black Beauty, Deep South Suite, Black and Tan Fantasy), why did Ellington get a pass as some sort of racial ambassador? Most of the Ellington songbook we think of was written by Billy Strayhorn (Take the A Train, Chelsea Bridge, Lush Life, Satin Doll) or by Duke’s soloists (Juan Tizol’s Caravan, Johnny Hodges’s Never No Lament becomes Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, Mood Indigo comes from Barney Bigard’s idea), so my guess all this massive Ellington hoopla came down to this elegant demeanor of his, his great ability to recognize when a soloist’s idea could be turned into a song and the two big melodies he did write, Solitude and It don’t Mean a Thing. Clark Terry called Duke, “a compiler of deeds and ideas”. That appears to sum him up better to me. Duke knew almost nothing about classical music, history, literature or even African American history, in that sense he is more of a primitive. He had read the bible a few times and that was it. In contrast, Miles Davis drummer Tony Williams seemed the opposite of Duke; though already a master at 17, he worked the rest of his life to learn more by reading and studying the most serious composers and authors. Tony with his open mindset said this: “I remember when I started taking serious compositional classes, people were always asking me why I was doing it. They seemed to believe that since I had a record out I didn’t need to do anything else. I don’t understand that attitude at all. To me, being a musician is like being a doctor: You’ve got to keep up with all the changes, and the more you learn about your profession, the better off you are.” Had Duke studied Stravinsky, Hindemith, Charles Ives, Frank Martin, Ravel, Poulenc, Prokoviev, Hans Werner Henze, and Elliot Carter (Duke said he liked Delius but Delius is strings not brass) he would have learned much more about horn voicing and deeper harmonies. Or had Ellington gotten really influenced by Langston Hughes and the black struggle for freedom, I might put him up higher where others put him, however this book clearly shows him as another deeply flawed yet clearly creative man who may have put great things together never had a good authentic relationship with anyone - male or female. The best part of the book was the comment that the Big Bands died because they were decimated by the AFM 1942-44 Musician’s Strike (very important strike - Google that), as well as the draft. I would have previously thought it was economics (fewer people to pay), plugging in to amplification (which made fewer players sound bigger), and the move from R&B (lots of horns) to Rock (no horns and thus a small band). A fine book if you’d like to learn more about Duke Ellington’s story.
March 17, 2014
Terry Teachout now has added Duke Ellington to his list of musical biographies, started with "Pops", about Louis Armstrong. Augmenting these is one from the world of dance on George Balanchine and a journalistic adventure into the life of H.L. Mencken. None have disappointed. Far from it. All are as engaging as this masterful examination of The Duke, an American and musical icon.
Teachout starts in the usual place, examining Duke's early life and his family, then moves on to Duke's career, his start in music and the formative processes he underwent. Later in the book we meet musical and show business people whose names are comfortingly familiar to anyone with a background in 20th century American music, jazz, or theater. The emphasis is always on the music and the people who made it, but we can not help gaining glimpses of an America, indeed a whole world, now gone by. Sort of:
"Not that they had to go all the way to Alabama to be mistreated. In 1944 Ellington told a reporter of an encounter with a St. Louis policeman who came up to him after a performance and said, sure he was paying the composer a compliment, 'If you'd been a white man, Duke, you would have been a great musician'". Teachout does not make a big deal of race, merely puts it into perspective now and then. I thought the cop's statement represented the attitude, then and now, of millions of Americans. In the 'social justice' arena, I also found resonance with the story of Alan Turing and so many others in Billy Strayhorn's life. Again Teachout merely lays out a few facts, mainly that Billy never received anywhere near the recognition he deserved, mostly because he felt he had to keep a low profile, being gay.
Interestingly, as one my my old friends would note, only after both Ellington and Strayhorn were dead and their compositions, music charts, notebooks, etc., fell under the eye of interested experts and enthusiastic amateurs, was Strayhorn's contribution to the "Ellington sound" discovered. Even today the full extent of Billy's work is difficult to judge: so many songs bear only Ellington's name, or are attributed to both when only Strayhorn was involved in the creation of them.
I do not mean to give the impression that this book is about Billy Strayhorn, race relations or gay rights. The story is the story of Duke Ellington. David Schiff titled his 2012 examination of the Duke's music "The Ellington Century", and so it was. The present volume examines the man, his music, his heroics and his flaws.
Highly Recommended.
Teachout starts in the usual place, examining Duke's early life and his family, then moves on to Duke's career, his start in music and the formative processes he underwent. Later in the book we meet musical and show business people whose names are comfortingly familiar to anyone with a background in 20th century American music, jazz, or theater. The emphasis is always on the music and the people who made it, but we can not help gaining glimpses of an America, indeed a whole world, now gone by. Sort of:
"Not that they had to go all the way to Alabama to be mistreated. In 1944 Ellington told a reporter of an encounter with a St. Louis policeman who came up to him after a performance and said, sure he was paying the composer a compliment, 'If you'd been a white man, Duke, you would have been a great musician'". Teachout does not make a big deal of race, merely puts it into perspective now and then. I thought the cop's statement represented the attitude, then and now, of millions of Americans. In the 'social justice' arena, I also found resonance with the story of Alan Turing and so many others in Billy Strayhorn's life. Again Teachout merely lays out a few facts, mainly that Billy never received anywhere near the recognition he deserved, mostly because he felt he had to keep a low profile, being gay.
Interestingly, as one my my old friends would note, only after both Ellington and Strayhorn were dead and their compositions, music charts, notebooks, etc., fell under the eye of interested experts and enthusiastic amateurs, was Strayhorn's contribution to the "Ellington sound" discovered. Even today the full extent of Billy's work is difficult to judge: so many songs bear only Ellington's name, or are attributed to both when only Strayhorn was involved in the creation of them.
I do not mean to give the impression that this book is about Billy Strayhorn, race relations or gay rights. The story is the story of Duke Ellington. David Schiff titled his 2012 examination of the Duke's music "The Ellington Century", and so it was. The present volume examines the man, his music, his heroics and his flaws.
Highly Recommended.
June 19, 2014
This book is slightly different than Duke Ellington's America, which I also gave 5 stars. Mr Teachout has done a great job of portraying Duke's life and music. He feels strongly that Duke's longer compositions were not well done; he also is very critical of Duke's treatment of Billy Strayhorn and certain bandmembers who were not given the publishing credit that they deserved. His sources are close to Duke and there are many great anecdotes.
Harvey Cohen (Duke Ellington's America)astonished me with his analysis of Irving Mills' branding of Duke. I thought branding was a modern concept, but Mills' portrayal of Ellington as a genius, as a composer created the image of Duke that still remains. The band appeared in tuxedos, concerts started with a spotlight on Ellington at the piano . . Mills' branding was worth what he made off Duke on the publishing credits and percentages, especially when you consider how African-American musicians of the thirties were portrayed in the media.
Cohen also gave a strong depiction of Washington, D.C. in the 1900s, when Duke was a child there. Understanding Duke, means understanding the milieu he came from.
Terry Teachout, in Duke a Life of Duke Ellington, gave some new material: Duke's loves, Evie and the Countess, and their effect on his writing. Teachout also acknowledges the increasing amount of scholarly research on Duke Ellington.
Harvey Cohen (Duke Ellington's America)astonished me with his analysis of Irving Mills' branding of Duke. I thought branding was a modern concept, but Mills' portrayal of Ellington as a genius, as a composer created the image of Duke that still remains. The band appeared in tuxedos, concerts started with a spotlight on Ellington at the piano . . Mills' branding was worth what he made off Duke on the publishing credits and percentages, especially when you consider how African-American musicians of the thirties were portrayed in the media.
Cohen also gave a strong depiction of Washington, D.C. in the 1900s, when Duke was a child there. Understanding Duke, means understanding the milieu he came from.
Terry Teachout, in Duke a Life of Duke Ellington, gave some new material: Duke's loves, Evie and the Countess, and their effect on his writing. Teachout also acknowledges the increasing amount of scholarly research on Duke Ellington.
October 22, 2013
As close to "definitive" as any Ellington biography could ever come, Teachout's new tome equals his achievement in Pops-- he gets to the heart of Ellington's character just as ably as he did Satchmo's, basing his portrait in the man's defects as well as in his achievements. All of the mountain peaks are here-- the Washingtonians, the Cotton Club years, the coming of Strayhorn, Blanton-Webster, Carnegie Hall, and beyond; so, too, is the womanizing and the serial infidelity, the egomania, the laziness, the latter-year decline, the failures. And that's what makes the book so winsome: By including Duke's shortcomings, Teachout ensures that the work is more about humanity than hagiography, and he helps the achievements to seem all the more remarkable, as they are given their proper context. I might have liked to see more material on the small combo recordings-- Money Jungle, in particular-- but all told, this is a towering and truly rousing book. Will send you deep into Ellingtonia, is what it will do, so have the Blanton-Webster box set handy as you read.
June 14, 2025
Nicely done biography. Teachout begins at the height of Ellington's career and does his early life as a backflash. The emphasis here is on the character, career, and life of the great man. As we follow the Duke from his early years in Washington, D.C. to Harlem and then the world, Teachout tells the stories of the sidemen who made the band and inspired/contributed to the compositions that made Ellington the greatest of all Jazz composers.
I liked Teachouts style and his emphasis on the relationship between Ellington and his band. Teachout argues and shows that Ellington's genius was in putting it all together, not in original inspiration. For 40 years the band travelled and played as players turned over and the sound evolved leaving a trail of hits and major works for the ages.
I am a fan of Jazz and studied it in college. I know Ellington's hits, but I've never delved into his life. This was an overdue and enjoyable look into the life of a composer, band leader and song writer I've admired - a very good read!
I liked Teachouts style and his emphasis on the relationship between Ellington and his band. Teachout argues and shows that Ellington's genius was in putting it all together, not in original inspiration. For 40 years the band travelled and played as players turned over and the sound evolved leaving a trail of hits and major works for the ages.
I am a fan of Jazz and studied it in college. I know Ellington's hits, but I've never delved into his life. This was an overdue and enjoyable look into the life of a composer, band leader and song writer I've admired - a very good read!
February 20, 2019
I really enjoyed "Pops", Teachout's biography of Louis Armstrong. In comparison, I found "Duke" uneven, colder, and less interesting. However, I think that was because of the subject. Ellington was enigmatic and manipulative, not as likable as Armstrong.
But I read every word of "Duke". As with "Pops", Teachout did not seek to write a scholarly nor a definitive biography, but a narrative biography which is mainly a work of synthesis. He is a great writer and the book is just the right length. You learn a lot about Duke Ellington the composer, musician, and entertainer, and Ellington the man, but you do not learn more than you want to know. However, the writing sometimes bogs down, and I did not always understand Teachout when he wrote about the significance of Ellington's music.
Overall, a thorough, insightful, and solid biography. You will enjoy it if you are interested in this great musician, whether you know everything about Ellington or nothing about him.
But I read every word of "Duke". As with "Pops", Teachout did not seek to write a scholarly nor a definitive biography, but a narrative biography which is mainly a work of synthesis. He is a great writer and the book is just the right length. You learn a lot about Duke Ellington the composer, musician, and entertainer, and Ellington the man, but you do not learn more than you want to know. However, the writing sometimes bogs down, and I did not always understand Teachout when he wrote about the significance of Ellington's music.
Overall, a thorough, insightful, and solid biography. You will enjoy it if you are interested in this great musician, whether you know everything about Ellington or nothing about him.
February 10, 2014
A very informative, well written and comprehensive book on the incredible life of Duke Ellington. It fairly details the beauty and the not so beautiful sides to the man. He came across as a man, not a super-star or a prima donna or a celebrity with separate status, he was written as a man with the unique gift of being a composer, pianist, conductor, musical arranger and occasional singer. As been said there has been no one else like Duke Ellington in anyway, no one has ever come close or really attempted to. He was a unique person and indeed music was his mistress to whom he was only ever faithful to.
May 8, 2014
Teachout is a good biographer. Ellington is a fascinating, if not terribly sympathetic subject. A very complicated genius.
March 23, 2014
Unflinchingly honest, meticulously researched...
March 14, 2017
Bad writing
No narrative
A list of concerts
Abandoned
No narrative
A list of concerts
Abandoned
April 21, 2015
Couldn't finish it. The author spends a lot of time taking Duke to task, and unpacking all of his songs. I made it about a third of the way through and stopped caring.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 117 reviews