Duke Ellington's Music for the Theatre

Duke Ellington's Music for the Theatre PDF

Author: John Franceschina

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2017-07-06

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0786450266

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Duke Ellington's son Mercer has said that his father was frustrated in only one area of musical ambition: his desire to do his own Broadway show. Though Ellington wrote many theatrical pieces, he was never able to achieve success as a composer for the stage, and today his stage shows receive little attention from music historians. Nevertheless, these works occupied a significant place in Ellington's creative imagination, and many of the ideas he employed in their composition found their way into his other work. Here is the first book to acknowledge Duke Ellington's contribution to the stage. It offers a survey of every theater piece Ellington is known to have worked on during his lifetime, beginning with the 1925 revue The Chocolate Kiddies and ending with the unfinished "street opera" Queenie Pie. This large body of work includes full-length musicals, African American revues, ballets, and incidental music. The plot of each work is described and the score analyzed according to its dramatic function in the piece. Musical phrases are reproduced in the text, and associations with other well-known Ellington compositions are noted. An appendix provides a chronological listing of Ellington's shows with song titles conveniently listed under each.

Duke

Duke PDF

Author: Terry Teachout

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2013-10-17

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 0698138589

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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. A semi-finalist for the National Book Award, 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.”

The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington

The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington PDF

Author: Edward Green

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-01-08

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 1316194132

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Duke Ellington is widely held to be the greatest jazz composer and one of the most significant cultural icons of the twentieth century. This comprehensive and accessible Companion is the first collection of essays to survey, in depth, Ellington's career, music, and place in popular culture. An international cast of authors includes renowned scholars, critics, composers, and jazz musicians. Organized in three parts, the Companion first sets Ellington's life and work in context, providing new information about his formative years, method of composing, interactions with other musicians, and activities abroad; its second part gives a complete artistic biography of Ellington; and the final section is a series of specific musical studies, including chapters on Ellington and song-writing, the jazz piano, descriptive music, and the blues. Featuring a chronology of the composer's life and major recordings, this book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in Ellington's enduring artistic legacy.

Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington PDF

Author: Steven Brower

Publisher: Rizzoli Publications

Published: 2016-03-22

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 0847848132

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Beautifully illustrated and unparalleled in scope, this is an elegant visual celebration befitting the life and work of the "prince of the piano." Duke Ellington was the undisputed father of the American songbook. A prolific writer and consummate performer, Ellington was the author of such standards as "Solitude," "Prelude to a Kiss," and "It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got that Swing)." With a career that spanned five decades, he is one of the defining composers of the Jazz Age. With unprecedented access to the Ellington family archives, this long overdue book illuminates the life and work of an icon of twentieth-century music from his humble beginnings to his long-lasting success. Every stage of Ellington’s career is brought to life, from sepia photographs of his early days in Washington, DC, to colorful playbills from the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, his triumphant tours of Europe in the 1930s, and his pioneering explosion of form and genre in the 1940s and beyond. Alongside more than two hundred stunning images, contributions from peers such as Dave Brubeck, Cornel West, Quincy Jones, and Tony Bennett shed light on Ellington’s musical legacy, while the voice of his granddaughter Mercedes reveals the character behind the charisma, and the man behind the piano.

Duke Ellington, Jazz Composer

Duke Ellington, Jazz Composer PDF

Author: Ken Rattenbury

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1990-01-01

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9780300055078

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American composer, pianist and orchestra leader Duke Ellington was the first genuine jazz composer of truly international status. In this book Ken Rattenbury offers a thorough musical analysis of Ellington's works, assessing the extent to which Ellington drew on the black music traditions of blues and ragtime and the music of Tin Pan Alley, and examining how he integrated black folk music practices with elements of European art music. Rattenbury investigate's Ellington's methods of composition, focusing on works written, performed and recorded between 1939 and 1941, years that witnessed the full flowering of Ellington's genius. He also discusses the criteria Ellington used to select his musicians.

The Ellington Century

The Ellington Century PDF

Author: David Schiff

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2012-01-07

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0520245873

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Explores music produced during the lifetime of Duke Ellington and the pursuit of musicians to keep up with constantly changing modern life.

Music Is My Mistress

Music Is My Mistress PDF

Author: Duke Ellington

Publisher: Da Capo Press, Incorporated

Published: 1976-02-21

Total Pages: 548

ISBN-13:

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Not a chronological autobiography, but an organized set of eight acts, each of which is driven by entertaining annecdotes about the many people who colored the life of this jazz great. Lists more than 1,500 of Ellington's compositions.

Duke Ellington: Grove Music Essentials

Duke Ellington: Grove Music Essentials PDF

Author: Marcello Piras

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2015-03-01

Total Pages: 40

ISBN-13: 0190268778

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Biography of jazz musician Duke Ellington. This ebook is a static version of an article from Grove Music Online, a continuously updated online resource, offering comprehensive coverage of the world’s music written by leading scholars. For more information, visit www.oxfordmusiconline.com.

Ellingtonia

Ellingtonia PDF

Author: W. E. Timner

Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Published: 2000-01-01

Total Pages: 684

ISBN-13: 0585040842

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More than a discography, this book compiles the complete recorded music of Duke Ellington and his sidemen, including studio recordings, movie soundtracks, concerts, dance dates, radio broadcasts, telecasts, and private recordings, creating an easy to use reference source for Jazz collectors and scholars.