Yet another book on Duke Ellington: "A Tone Parallel to Duke Ellington. The Man in the Music" by Jack Chambers

[EKE BBB]

A Tone Parallel to Duke Ellington. The Man in the Music
by Jack Chambers

Jackson, Mississippi 2025 (University Press of Mississippi)
274 pages, 30 US-Dollars
ISBN: 9781496855749

Series: American Made Music Series

Hardcover : 9781496855701, 274 pages, 4 musical examples; 1 table, March 2025
Paperback : 9781496855749, 274 pages, 4 musical examples; 1 table, March 2025

Hardcover $110.00
Paperback $30.00

https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/A/A-Tone-Parallel-to-Duke-Ellington

 

Review by Wolfram Knauer:

https://wolframknauer.de/en/books-2025#2025chambers

Edited Wednesday at 11:49 AM by EKE BBB

[felser]

What are the best books on Ellington for an interested non-musician?

[Dub Modal]

Great question 

[HutchFan]

28 minutes ago, felser said:

What are the best books on Ellington for an interested non-musician?

My recommendations:

- The World of Duke Ellington by Stanley Dance

- Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington by John Edward Hasse

- Duke: A Portrait of Duke Ellington by Derek Jewell

- Duke Ellington in Person: An Intimate Memoir by Mercer Ellington

 

I would avoid the biographies by James Lincoln Collier and Terry Teachout, who both fail to understand/recognize the brilliance and importance of mid- and late-period Ellington.

 

Edited Thursday at 03:28 PM by HutchFan

[Chuck Nessa]

10 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

My recommendations:

- The World of Duke Ellington by Stanley Dance

- Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington by John Edward Hasse

- Duke: A Portrait of Duke Ellington by Derek Jewell

- Duke Ellington in Person: An Intimate Memoir by Mercer Ellington

 

I would avoid the biographies by James Lincoln Collier and Terry Teachout, who both fail to understand/recognize the brilliance and importance of mid- and late-period Ellington.

 

Good list.

[Dub Modal]

17 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

My recommendations:

- The World of Duke Ellington by Stanley Dance

- Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington by John Edward Hasse

- Duke: A Portrait of Duke Ellington by Derek Jewell

- Duke Ellington in Person: An Intimate Memoir by Mercer Ellington

 

I would avoid the biographies by James Lincoln Collier and Terry Teachout, who both fail to understand/recognize the brilliance and importance of mid- and late-period Ellington.

 

Nice. Thanks!

Do the mid- years for Ellington start in the post-war 40s? How exactly are those eras divided? 

[HutchFan]

There's no tidy, agreed-upon divisions.

By "mid- and late-period" Ellington, I'm basically referring to everything after the Blanton-Webster band.

So, yes, mid-1940s onward.

 

 

[JSngry]

For me, the dividing line is the departure of Sonny Greer. Johnny Hodges left, but his replacements were variations on a theme , and anyway, he came back. Greer's replacements were always more "modern" in style and once Sam Woodyard settled in, that was it for the duration .

I might even think that "late" Ellington begins with the departure of Woodyard and the appearance of Rufus Jones.

The "character" of so many big bands is set my the drummer, and Ellington's was no exception. Of course, that's not the only thing, but it's a fundamental one.

In terms of records, there was a period of transition between the last Columbia with Greer and the first with Woodyard . The Bellson period and further are perhaps the definition of "transitional".

It's definitely one of the longest uninterrupted journeys in musical history.

[ghost of miles]

8 hours ago, HutchFan said:

My recommendations:

- The World of Duke Ellington by Stanley Dance

- Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington by John Edward Hasse

- Duke: A Portrait of Duke Ellington by Derek Jewell

- Duke Ellington in Person: An Intimate Memoir by Mercer Ellington

 

I would avoid the biographies by James Lincoln Collier and Terry Teachout, who both fail to understand/recognize the brilliance and importance of mid- and late-period Ellington.

 

Agree with HutchFan here on all counts and just wanted to toss another book rec into the thread--Harvey Cohen's Duke Ellington's America, which is a deep and well-researched dive that I reviewed for the Night Lights site not long after it was published. 

Oh, and for a book that deals primarily with Ellington's music, try to track down a copy of Eddie Lambert's Duke Ellington: A Listener's Guide, which goes for a pretty penny these days. It does look to be instantly available on Kindle at a high price. 

And then there's David Berger's ongoing project, which I haven't really kept tabs on since the appearance of that article several years ago. 

[JSngry]

Music Is my Mistress is a must if you don't mind reading between a few or more) lines.

[Chuck Nessa]

3 hours ago, JSngry said:

Music Is my Mistress is a must if you don't mind reading between a few or more) lines.

Indeed. I would be interested in opinions of "Ellington: the Early Years" by Mark Tucker.

[Mark Stryker]

9 hours ago, Chuck Nessa said:

Indeed. I would be interested in opinions of "Ellington: the Early Years" by Mark Tucker.

Tucker's "The Early Years" is  excellent, but it is written by a musicologist and full of analysis and notated musical examples, so it might not be the best fit for Felser's original query seeking books for non-musicians. However, I'd recommend it if one can at least read music. 

However, Tucker's "The Duke Ellington Reader" can be recommended enthusiastically without caveats. 

It's a tragedy that Tucker died so young -- at 46, from lung cancer, in 2000. He would have been the scholar to give us the Ellington biography we want, the culture needs, and that Ellington deserves. 

On a related front, "The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington," edited by Edward Green is mostly excellent. Mostly scholarly but easily readable for non-musicians, though there are a number of essays with notation/analysis. 

Edited Friday at 01:45 PM by Mark Stryker

[Dub Modal]

Have any of you ever attended one of the Ellington Society events? 

[ghost of miles]

1 hour ago, Mark Stryker said:

Tucker's "The Early Years" is  excellent, but it is written by a musicologist and full of analysis and notated musical examples, so it might not be the best fit for Felser's original query seeking books for non-musicians. However, I'd recommend it if one can at least read music. 

However, Tucker's "The Duke Ellington Reader" can be recommended enthusiastically without caveats. 

It's a tragedy that Tucker died so young -- at 46, from lung cancer, in 2000. He would have been the scholar to give us the Ellington biography we want, the culture needs, and that Ellington deserves. 

On a related front, "The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington," edited by Edward Green is mostly excellent. Mostly scholarly but easily readable for non-musicians, though there are a number of essays with notation/analysis. 

Co-sign all of this and embarrassed that I forgot to mention Tucker's Ellington Reader in particular, which I consider essential for Ellingtonians. (Iirc Tucker also wrote the notes for Mosaic's Ellington Reprise box.) 

1 hour ago, Dub Modal said:

Have any of you ever attended one of the Ellington Society events? 

He's yet to appear in this thread, but I believe Joe Medjuck has.

[medjuck]

2 hours ago, Dub Modal said:

Have any of you ever attended one of the Ellington Society events? 

I have.  So has Miles '65.    (I'm presuming you mean the irregularly held Ellington Conferences. There is no international Ellington Society. The conferences are put on by individual groups from different countries.  I don't think there's one scheduled at the moment. )

[miles65]

I attended conferences in London, Woking, Amsterdam. New York, Paris and last years miniconference in Stockholm. I loved meeting a lot of Ellingtonians. I met Joe Medjuck in New York and Paris. 

[Dub Modal]

22 hours ago, medjuck said:

I have.  So has Miles '65.    (I'm presuming you mean the irregularly held Ellington Conferences. There is no international Ellington Society. The conferences are put on by individual groups from different countries.  I don't think there's one scheduled at the moment. )

 

21 hours ago, miles65 said:

I attended conferences in London, Woking, Amsterdam. New York, Paris and last years miniconference in Stockholm. I loved meeting a lot of Ellingtonians. I met Joe Medjuck in New York and Paris. 

Very cool. And yes, I mean the Ellington Conferences. Do they typically have any Ellington literature publications at those, along with CDs or other audio media? 

[medjuck]

50 minutes ago, Dub Modal said:

 

Very cool. And yes, I mean the Ellington Conferences. Do they typically have any Ellington literature publications at those, along with CDs or other audio media? 

Some but not a lot.  

[hopkins]

On 4/18/2025 at 6:45 PM, medjuck said:

I have.  So has Miles '65.    (I'm presuming you mean the irregularly held Ellington Conferences. There is no international Ellington Society. The conferences are put on by individual groups from different countries.  I don't think there's one scheduled at the moment. )

We also met in Paris

On 4/18/2025 at 3:43 PM, Mark Stryker said:

Tucker's "The Early Years" is  excellent, but it is written by a musicologist and full of analysis and notated musical examples, so it might not be the best fit for Felser's original query seeking books for non-musicians. However, I'd recommend it if one can at least read music. 

However, Tucker's "The Duke Ellington Reader" can be recommended enthusiastically without caveats. 

It's a tragedy that Tucker died so young -- at 46, from lung cancer, in 2000. He would have been the scholar to give us the Ellington biography we want, the culture needs, and that Ellington deserves. 

On a related front, "The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington," edited by Edward Green is mostly excellent. Mostly scholarly but easily readable for non-musicians, though there are a number of essays with notation/analysis. 

There's a good video of a Tucker conference where he discusses "New World A Coming" before performing it on stage. It has been posted on the Swedish Duke Ellington society's web site. Well worth watching. I cannot find it anymore, it may be under a password protected section (I fail to see how a Duke Ellington fan club site could have confidential information).

Here is another I just found but have not watched yet:

https://ellingtongalaxy.org/2024/02/01/mark-tucker-at-ellington-87/

Edited 17 hours ago by hopkins

[miles65]

16 hours ago, Dub Modal said:

 

Very cool. And yes, I mean the Ellington Conferences. Do they typically have any Ellington literature publications at those, along with CDs or other audio media? 

I have CD's from London 2008 with Ellington in London 1958 and New York 2016 with Hurricane Broadcasts from 1943-44 from the Timme Rozencrantz archive.

Ken Steiner produced a booklet 'Wild Throng Dances Madly in Cellar Club' for the 2008 conference. It is a chronical with press clippings from 1923-1927. It contains a lot of information not in Tuckers book.