Description
Book SynopsisFew American artists in any medium have enjoyed the international and lasting cultural impact of Duke Ellington. This title paints a portrait of the life and times of this towering figure, taking him from his youth in the black middle-class enclave of Washington, DC, to the heights of worldwide acclaim.
Trade Review"Harvey G. Cohen's new book illuminates Ellington's career as never before, and also helps to deepen our understanding of larger trends and issues in American politics and culture. No previous book on Ellington has followed the money so rigorously, laying bare the interworkings of art and capital." (Times Literary Supplement) "The book makes nuanced sense of the hard choices at every turn, in years when it often fell to Ellington to pioneer new audiences and new venues, and to insist on a level of dignity rarely accorded to African-American artists." (Geoffrey O'Brien, New York Review of Books) "Cohen's volume... is substantial, richly sourced, intelligent.... Unlike many other writers on Ellington, Cohen gives proper attention to all phases of Ellington's career, and in so doing unveils information that is new or has been overlooked.... This is an important work and one that Ellington scholarship will benefit from and draw on for new debates." (Times Higher Education) "Duke Ellington's America attempts to get under the skin of this apparently most imperturbable of men, and the results... are fascinating.... An extremely intelligent and formidably documented book - a welcome change from much that has been published about Ellington." (Claudia Roth Pierpont, New Yorker)"
