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    Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington
    Unavailable
    Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington
    Unavailable
    Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington
    Audiobook17 hours

    Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington

    Written by Terry Teachout

    Narrated by Peter Francis James

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A major 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."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateOct 17, 2013
    ISBN9780698135697
    Unavailable
    Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington

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    Reviews for Duke

    4/5

    23 ratings2 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I appreciate Teachout and how much work went into this, but just liked it, didn't love it. Obviously a tremendous work of scholarship however. I don't think that Ellington comes off in a particularly good light, in fact he seems like not too great of a guy in many ways. That of course doesn't make this book bad or good, just an observation. Some of the writing style I didn't care for that much, like making (very) long lists of the places he toured in passages or that type of thing. Also, while the reader of this book did an excellent job with this narration, it was produced poorly. Again and again there were obvious edits, including many instances where the narrator obviously went back into the studio to rerecord passages. These re-recorded passages too often didn't match up with the main narration in tone/, volume, excitement, you name it.
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed this terrific biography of Duke. Teachout has done an excellent job of synthesizing what's known about Ellington's life into a very compelling story. The last paragraph of the book is apt: "Everyone knows him—yet no one knows him. That was the way he wanted it. 'To the very end, he made sure he left nothing behind that would let people know the real Duke Ellington,' Norman Granz said. But he had: He left behind his music, the only mistress to whom he told everything and was always true."