Reminiscing in Tempo: A Portrait of Duke Ellington

There are a handful of books about jazz which provide musical insights and feelings and opinions which pull the reader into the lives of those who do the job of making music - still probably the best is HEAR ME TALKIN' TO YA edited by Shapiro and Hentoff along with Stuart Nicholson author of A PORTRAIT OF DUKE ELLINGTON Reminiscing in TEMPO. Another is STRAIGHT LIFE, the story of ART PEPPER. This is not to deny the brilliance of FOUR LIVES IN THE BEBOP BUSINESS or MR JELLY LORD, but it is hard to match the excitement of reading the words of those who made the music, judiciously edited of course. A PORTRAIT OF DUKE ELLINGTON is up there with the best books I've read on jazz. Its added value is that its subject is one of the most important musicians of the 20th century. Its fascination is how his creative juices were pushed by the imperatives of the time - deadlines were something the Duke apparently thrived on. On the other hand, pigeonholing may have held him back from becoming an even greater composer. Some of the great scenes in the book include one recounted by Sonny Greer on a performance in England when the band preceding them on the programme suddenly stopped in the middle of its performance to play God Save the King - The Prince of Wales (nicknamed the Prince of Wails by Fats Waler I believe) had entered the auditorium. But this was nothing to the reception that the Ellington band received when it performed. They were not used to ten minute standing ovations. There's no getting past the fact that Europeans, or music lovers outside the States, seem to have taken "jazz" or "modern improvised music" much more seriously than the place of its birth. This may still be the case today. A PORTRAIT OF DUKE ELLINGTON also contains editorial factual comments, examples of bill posters, advertising, and a series of FBI Memoes which would be hilarious if they were not so frighteningly stupid. A PORTRAIT OF DUKE ELLINGTON is also an excellent social history of the time from the 20's to the 70's, at least from the perspective of members of the Ellington Orchestra. Vivid and touching portraits abound, including Junior Raglin, Bubber Miley, and Sweet Pea Strayhorn. There are a few guffaws, many chuckles and a few tears in this wonderful book. Especially for music lovers, but any intelligent reader would find much to enjoy about one story of America's greatest cultural contribution to the century past.

This is an extremely readable work. The author has compiled extracts from interviews with Ellington, band members and family spanning his life and career, presenting the material as an oral history. The reader is given a strong insight into how Ellington worked and what made him such a great and unique composer, band leader and human being. I found this book to be extremely involving, often moving me to laughter or tears. I would only complain that the writer has perhaps done too good a job editorially with his material in that he could have risked boring us a little by including much more. The upside of this is that the book should be enjoyable to anyone who has even the remotest interest in the man, the music or the period of his life. This book is an extremely fitting testament to a man who is without doubt one of the foremost figures in 20th Century culture .