Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn [Hardcover] Review

Billy Strayhorn'scontribution to the work of Duke Ellington is immeasurable--at last he is given his full due in David Hajdu's perceptive and insightful portrait of this largely unsung genius of 20th centurymusic. Hajdu's sensitive biography, derived from countless interviewswith friends, family and fellow musicians, reveals Strayhorn as a complex,creative individual who preferred to stay discreetly in Ellington's shadow throughout much of his life.It also provides a telling portrait of a manwho lived his life as a gay African-American musician completely out in the open during a time in this country when it was both difficult anddangerous to do so.Hajdu has givenus telling portraits as well of manyof Strayhorn's contemporaries such as Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, JohnnyHodges, Ray Nance and the Duke himself who loved "Swea-Pea"(Strayhorn's nickname) as a part of himself.Not only a portrait of acreative, intellectual genius, "Lush Life"also gives us aninsightful look into the world of jazz and African-american popular musicthat grew out of an age of racism and discrimination.The concludingchapters that chronicle Strayhorn's involvement inthe civil rightsmovement of the early '60's andhis friendships with Martin Luther Kingand Medgar Evans and his own battle with the throat cancer that cut hislife short (at age fifty-one) areespecially powerful.Throughout thebook, Hajduprovides lively anecdotal writing while remaining a respectfuljournalist and chronicler of his subject.I highly recommend this book toanyone interested in jazz history, popular culture, orpurely for aportrait of an understated genius.

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The Genius of Duke Ellington [Paperback] Review

I had wanted a Duke Ellington piano solo book for a long time. And the unfortunate part about buying jazz books is that they aren't available in local stores. There's no way to look inside of the book online, so I basically have to guess which ones are good.

So I guess you see where I'm going - I am not completely happy with it. All of the songs are 1 or 2 pages. After the basic composition, there is no improvisation on the melody. Plus, a lot of the songs are labeled "Boogie-Woogie", which is not my favorite style.

The plus side is that I did learn a cool trick. Now that I know that I don't like really short songs, I can use what is available on Amazon - page count and song count. Doing the math, this book has songs that are an average of 1.7 pages. A different book that I have enjoyed has 5.25 pages per song. So before buying a book, I can check that out.

The other good thing is that the songs have grown on me. The arrangements are by Duke Ellington himself, and not someone arranging his orchestra songs for piano solo. So I like playing what the genius himself arranged. Out of the book, there are a few gems.

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Product Description:
Two dozen tunes in the Duke's own style. Includes: I'm Nobody's Baby
* I'll See You in My Dreams
* I Cried for You
* At Sundown
* You Are My Lucky Star.

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The Great Music of Duke Ellington [Paperback] Review

This book contains a 14 page overview of Duke's career and the words and music to over 40 songs, which are:
Albamy Home
Azure
Birmingham Breakdown
Black Butterfly
Bli-blip
Boy Meets Horn
The Brown Skin Gal in the Calico Gown
Caravan
Come Sunday
The Creole Love Call
Day Dream
Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me
Doin' The Crazy Walk
Don't Get Around Much Anymore
Echoes Of Harlem
Everything But You
Five O'Clock Drag
The Gal From Joe's
Gypsy Without A Song
I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good
I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart
I Never Felt This Way Before
I'm Just A Lucky So And So
I'm Riding On The Moon And Dancing On The Stars
I'm So In Love With You
In A Sentimental Mood
It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)
Jeep Is Jumping
Lady In Blue
Lost In Meditation
Love You Madly
Mood Indigo
Paris Blues
Please Forgive Me
Prelude To A Kiss
Ring Dem Bells
Rockin' In Rhythm
Satin Doll
Solitude
Something To Live For
Sophisticated Lady
Take The "A" Train

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Beyond Category: The Life And Genius Of Duke Ellington [Paperback] Review

Beyond Category is the best introduction to Duke Ellington's life and music. It was created to coincide with a Smithsonian exhibit and it offers a quality professional biography of Ellington's life and times. The author considers Ellington's life a series of problems to solve for his mind. Some of these problems are how to learn piano, how to start a band, how to compose with a partner, how to react to the recording band, how to deal with the loss of key soloists, how to compose larger works and ends up hitting many of the high points of Ellington's life and works.
Most of the new research at the time came from Mercer Ellington's enormous donation of his warehouse of materials for the Duke Ellington collectionl. Yet as a book intended for a popular audience, the musical content of this trove was not really fully dealt with. Mercer's collection comes through in the fabulous photographs that are interspersed throughout the book. It may have been better to have all the photographs grouped in several sections as not everyone will have time to read the entire book I suppose.
One very helpful aspect to the book was that at the end of each chapter there was a guide to key recordings of Ellington's life. This type of material is very helpful to those new to Ellington's life.
I found the prose to be clear and adequate although not as lively as some of the other excellent jazz biographies I've read such as Chambers' Milestones.
This book gets a 4.5 star rating for anyone new to Ellington. It's accessible, readable, and gives you several ideas to approach the true gold mine of Ellington's music.
For jazz researchers and scholars, there's still room for a knockout biography of Ellington that adds the information from the Smithsonian collection to wide ranging interviews and even better prose. Researchers will want to read this, but I'm not sure how much of this material is groundbreaking.
4.5 stars for neophytes
3.5 stars for Ellington scholars
4 stars overall

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Something to Live For: The Music of Billy Strayhorn [Hardcover] Review

There are not enough stars that can adequately rate this book. Van de Leur has given us the first truly thorough analysis of a composer of jazz (although Strayhorn was much more than a jazz composer). You do need some musical knowledge to understand what he is talking about, but his discussion and analyses of Strayhorn's music are clear, concise and well-reasoned. The appendices alone are worth the price of the book, where he lists every scrap of music currently known of Strayhorn's, where it is, when it was recorded, and what was played (in many cases, Ellington only used parts of Strayhorn's arrangements of pop tunes). The sheer amount of work it took to complete this project is startling and awe-inspriring.
For years we wondered what Strayhorn's real role was in the Ellington organization. Now we know without any doubt. Bravo Walter!!!!

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Duke Ellington: His Life in Jazz with 21 Activities (For Kids series) [Paperback] Review

What a great book to explore jazz though the life of Duke Ellington! The activities are fun and engaging (most are appropriate for the 7 - 10 age group). I like that there is variety in the activities (everything from making instruments to writing lyrics to making corn bread!), so kids can get a more robust hands on learning experience.
While this is by no means a stand alone book on jazz, it is a great introduction to students learning about various types of music, an excellent starting book for someone doing a biography on Duke Ellington, or a jumping off point into the wonderful world of jazz. It would also make a great gift for a young, budding musician as the Duke was a great role model (I haven't read about a drug habit or wife beating or other things that tend to plague musicians of all genres throughout history).
While this book could be used in schools, it seems most appropriate for use at home with the family. There are great family activities and the way the book is written, it easily allows for parents and grandparents to expound upon "those days" that don't seem so "walked ten miles to school, uphill, in a snow storm". It allows for some great life lessons as Duke Ellington didn't just happen to be a great musician, he worked hard at it and even when he was very good - he still continued to practice and learn from others to try and get better. Pair it with samples of his music and you have a great family learning project to help bring you closer to your children in a new and exciting way.

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