Duke

A Life of Duke Ellington

Ranked #44 in Jazz

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,...
more

Similar Books

If you like Duke, check out these similar top-rated books:


Learn: What makes Shortform summaries the best in the world?