Duke Ellington Studies

John Howland

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9780521764049
• eBook ISBN:
  9781108239479
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

Duke Ellington (1899–1974) is widely considered the jazz tradition's most celebrated composer. This engaging yet scholarly volume explores his long career and his rich cultural legacy from a broad range of in-depth perspectives, from the musical and historical to the political and international. World-renowned scholars and musicians examine Ellington's influence on jazz music, its criticism, and its historiography. The chronological structure of the volume allows a clear understanding of the development of key themes, with chapters surveying his work and his reception in America and abroad. By both expanding and reconsidering the contexts in which Ellington, his orchestra, and his music are discussed, Duke Ellington Studies reflects a wealth of new directions that have emerged in jazz studies, including focuses on music in media, class hierarchy discourse, globalization, cross-cultural reception, and the role of marketing, as well as manuscript score studies and performance studies.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Note on Reference Abbreviations
• 1 Ellington the Entertainer: Pageantry and Prophecy in Duke Ellington’s Films
• 2 Marketing to the Middlebrow: Reconsidering Ellingtonia, the Legacy of Early Ellington Criticism, and the Idea of a “Serious” Jazz Composer
• 3 “Art or Debauchery?”: The Reception of Ellington in the U.K.
• 4 “Nobody Was Looking”: The Unparalleled Jazz Piano Legacy of Duke Ellington
• 5 “People Wrap Their Lunches in Them”: Duke Ellington and His Written Music Manuscripts
• 6 The Moor’s Revenge: The Politics of Such Sweet Thunder
• 7 Duke Ellington in the LP Era
• 8 Authentic Synthetic Hybrid: Ellington’s Concepts of Africa and Its Music
• 9 “The Mother of All Albums”: Revisiting Ellington’s A Drum Is a Woman
• Index