B8
B
Jonathan Yardley
Melodies that remade a nation
T
DUKE ELLINGTON’S AMERICA
By Harvey G. Cohen Univ. of Chicago. 688 pp. $40
his account of the life and times of Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington — by far
the most distinguished and important native son of Washington, D.C. — is maddeningly overlong, mindlessly repetitious and, for all that, undeniably valuable. Harvey G. Cohen, an American academic who began his career at the University of Maryland and is now an associate professor of cultural and creative industries at King’s College in London, has done prodigious research, much of it as a Kluge Scholar at the Library of Congress, and has unearthed an astonishing amount of material. All of this lends powerful support to his view that Ellington’s high stature derives not just from the music he composed and played but from the remarkable life, both private and public, that he led.
There’s no use pretending that “Duke
Ellington’s America” is for everyone. At nearly 600 pages of text, it is too long by a third, its prose is clunky at best and sometimes considerably worse, it has absolutely no sense of narrative, and it has a firmer grasp on Ellington the man than on Ellington the musician. On the other hand, as Cohen puts it: “Thousands of documents demonstrate how Ellington mediated the tensions between popular and serious American art, intellectual and popular culture, creativity and conformity, democracy and communism, and especially between blacks and whites. Through his actions and his work over half a century, he changed American culture, transforming the nation’s cultural and racial landscape.” These are the central themes of Cohen’s study, and the case he makes for them is strong and persuasive. I call the book a “study,” not a biography, because rather than follow a biographer’s trajectory, Cohen has chosen to divide his book into sections that, though they correspond roughly to the evolution of Ellington’s life, are principally thematic: the adroit marketing of Ellington by his first manager, Irving Mills; the rise of popular culture and Ellington’s somewhat ambiguous position within it as both a popular and a serious musician; his belief, rooted in a childhood when the most admired and emulated African American was Booker T. Washington, that the African American cause was best advanced by individual and collective achievement; the central place of black history, culture and tradition in the music he composed; his struggle, after World War II and the collapse of the big bands, to keep his orchestra going so that he could hear his music as soon as he composed it; his rejuvenation at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956 and his eventual recognition (by just about everyone except the Pulitzer Prize board, which refused in 1965 to give him a special award) as one of the giants of American culture; his busy and productive later years, in which he concentrated on “Sacred Concerts” and other long pieces.
Ellington was born in 1899: “Washington . . . proved a perfect springboard for his genius and ambitions. It was a center of black musical and intellectual resistance to racism, and probably the best place to be an African American at the
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong rehearse at the RCA Victor recording studio in 1946.
turn of the century.... The city was a bastion of the black middle class, to which Ellington’s family tenuously belonged.... From his upbringing, from the mentors and cultural figures who came before him, Ellington adopted amethod of assertive yet nonconfrontational activism in dealing with matters of race, prejudice, and black achievement.” Growing up in the Shaw neighborhood on the fringes of downtown, he was encouraged by his extended family — pampered, in the case of his adoring mother — and grew up self-confident, taking up a musical career when he was young and quickly displaying a “genial personality and skill at networking and advertising [that] made him an effective businessman.” By the early 1920s he had taken his band (known for some time as the Washingtonians) to New York, and in 1927 he settled in for a four-year run at the Cotton Club in Harlem, which presented black music and dancers to white audiences. One flinches now at the exploitation and prejudice that inspired this plantation atmosphere, but Ellington’s stay there (which roughly paralleled the period of Louis Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Hot Sevens) was one of the formative events in jazz history. Significant elements of the Ellington repertoire were composed and performed there — “East Saint Louis Toodle-Oo,” “Black Beauty,” “Creole Love Call,” “Black and Tan Fantasie,” “The Mooche”— and the engagement “provided huge promotional and creative advantages for Ellington and his band.” By the 1930s Ellington was a national figure, a regular performer on radio broadcasts and the author of songs that became both jazz standards and popular hits. Like all black musicians of the period, he faced endless discrimination and privation while on the road (which, after the Cotton Club, was where he could be found almost 52 weeks a year), but however deep his anger may have been, he maintained a cool, elegant demeanor: “Despite the absence of confrontational political or moral messages, Ellington’s image and work represented a significant promotion for the cause of civil rights, and helped change and expand American attitudes concerning blacks. Through Ellington, the black experience, replete with humanity, history, and artistry, filtered into millions of American homes as never before.” He “walked a delicate line, writing and talking about black history and culture at every opportunity, yet participating in the system of
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segregated venues and accommodations in many American cities, not just the South.” By the early 1960s he had decided to “stamp all of his booking contracts with a nonsegregation clause,” and for the remainder of his life (he died in 1974, a few days after his 75th birthday) he was more outspoken on matters of civil rights. His most important statements on the subject, though, had always been musical: the aforementioned titles from the Cotton Club period; the hugely ambitious if seriously flawed “Black, Brown and Beige,” an extended composition for orchestra first presented at a historic Carnegie Hall concert in 1943; “A Tone Parallel to Harlem,” the most successful of his longer compositions; and the “Sacred Concerts” of the 1960s and ’70s, the first of which it was my privilege to hear performed in early 1969 at a church in Boston. Cohen argues that Ellington’s later and mostly
longer music (“The Far East Suite,” “The Afro Eurasian Eclipse,” “The Latin-American Suite”) “has aged well, despite its initial lukewarm commercial reception,” but only those determined to find gold in every note Ellington composed will be inclined to agree. Though Cohen is right to praise Ellington for refusing to be complacent or to repeat himself — “he was going forward, he still had plenty to do, creating and improvising something memorable in the moment”— his yearning to blur and ultimately eradicate the line between jazz and classical music led him down paths for which his gifts were not entirely suited. There may not have been a pretentious bone in his body, but pretension occasionally peeks through in these longer compositions, leaving one yearning for the energy (and the brevity) of “Rockin’ in Rhythm” and “Concerto for Cootie.” But if Ellington’s more ambitious pieces are
unlikely to have a lasting presence in American music, “his personal journey,” Cohen rightly says in his final paragraph, “communicated just as much about his America and his world as his music. He helped transform his nation’s historical, racial and cultural landscape as he contributed to creating its musical heritage.” More than any other individual, he opened the way for the acceptance of serious African American culture and art, and he “provided a key precedent for international critics and audiences to view the music of Americans as serious and lasting, equal to that of Europeans, previously seen as the sole masters.” He loved to say that his music was “beyond category,” and so, of course, was he.
yardleyj@washpost.com
LITERARY CALENDAR
JUNE 1-5, 2010
1 TUESDAY | 6:30 P.M. “Law & Order” actor and former U.S. senator Fred Thompson discusses his new book, “Teaching the Pig to Dance: A Memoir of Growing Up and Second Chances,” at Borders Books-Downtown, 18th & L Sts. NW, 202-466-4999.
6:30 P.M. Local author Nadine Cohodas
discusses and signs her latest book, “Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone,” at Busboys and Poets, 2021 14th St. NW, 202-387-7638.
2WEDNESDAY | 6:45 P.M. Baltimore
native John Waters, actor, writer, artist and filmmaker (the cult classics “Hairspray” and “Pink Flamingos,” among others), discusses his life’s work and his new memoir, “Role Models,” in a conversation with Washington Post Style editor Ned Martel as part of the Smithsonian Resident Associate Program at the S. Dillon Ripley Center, 1100 Jefferson Dr. SW. A book signing follows. Tickets are $25 for nonmembers; call 202-633-3030 or visit
www.smithsonianassociates.org. 7P.M. Jeanine Cummins reads from and signs her first novel, “The Outside Boy,” at Borders Books, 20926 Frederick Rd., Germantown, Md., 301-528-0862. 7:30 P.M. Jeffery Deaver reads from and signs his new Lincoln Rhyme thriller, “The Burning Wire,” at Borders Books, Route 7 at Columbia Pike, Baileys Crossroads, Va., 703-998-0404.
3 THURSDAY | 6:30 P.M. Historian
Kathryn Schneider Smith, the founding
executive director of Cultural Tourism DC and a past president of the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., discusses the newly updated “Washington at Home: An Illustrated History of Neighborhoods in the
Nation’s Capital” at the Charles Sumner School & Museum, corner of 17th & M Sts. NW in an event sponsored by Cultural Tourism D.C. For details, call 202-661-7581 or visit
www.culturaltourismdc.org. 7P.M. Matt Gallagher, a U.S. Army lieutenant who served in (and blogged from) Iraq, discusses and signs his new memoir, “Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War,” at Politics and Prose Bookstore, 202-364-1919. 7P.M. Susan Coll reads from and discusses her new novel, “Beach Week,” at Barnes & Noble-Bethesda, 4801 Bethesda Ave., Bethesda, Md., 301-986-1761.
4 FRIDAY | Noon. William G. Hyland Jr.,
a former prosecutor and a veteran trial lawyer, discuses and signs his new book, “In Defense of Thomas Jefferson: The Sally Hemings Sex Scandal,” at the National Archives, Jefferson Room, 700 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 202-357-5000.
7P.M. Sasha Polakow-Suransky, a
senior editor at Foreign Affairs, discusses and signs her new book, “The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa,” at Politics and Prose Bookstore, 202-364-1919.
5 SATURDAY | 4 P.M. Actress and
comedian Samantha Bee, a cast member of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” since 2003 (she holds the title “most senior correspondent”), discusses and signs her new memoir, “I Know I Am, But What Are You?,” at Borders Books-Downtown, 202-466-4999.
For more literary events, go to
washingtonpost.com/gog/ and search “book event.”
KLMNO
FICTION
1 61 HOURS (Delacorte, $28)
SUNDAY,MAY 30, 2010
WASHINGTON BESTSELLERS
HARDCOVER
1
By Lee Child. Ex-military cop Jack Reacher finds himself stranded in a small town with big (drug) problems.
2 STORM PREY (Putnam, $27.95)
1
By John Sandford. When a robbery results in a death, Lucas Davenport’s wife is a star witness.
3 HEART OF THE MATTER (St. Martin’s, $26.99)
4 INNOCENT (Grand Central, $27.99)
5 DEAD IN THE FAMILY (Ace, $25.95)
6 THE HELP (Amy Einhorn, $24.95)
2
By Emily Giffin. Alternating voices narrate this tale of a doctor’s life: his wife and the woman he’s drawn to.
3
By Scott Turow. Rusty Savitch is a murder suspect once more in this sequel to “Presumed Innocent.”
3
By Charlaine Harris. This 10th Sookie Stackhouse tale delves into family dynamics and romantic liaisons.
45
By Kathryn Stockett. A frank chronicle of the lives of several black maids working in a town in 1960s Miss.
7 THE 9TH JUDGMENT (Little, Brown, $27.99)
4
By James Patterson. The Women’s Murder Club works to find the link between seemingly isolated crimes.
8 DELIVER US FROM EVIL (Grand Central, $27.99)
9 FEVER DREAM (Grand Central, $26.99)
10 THE DOUBLE COMFORT SAFARI CLUB
5
By David Baldacci. Covert operative Shaw returns to thwart a Ukrainian trading in nuclear arms and slavery.
2
By Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast suspects foul play in the death of his wife.
5
(Pantheon, $24.95). By Alexander McCall Smith. The new No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency tale.
NONFICTION/GENERAL
1 WOMEN FOOD AND GOD: AN UNEXPECTED PATH TO
ALMOST EVERYTHING (Scribner, $24)
By Geneen Roth. Tackling compulsive eating.
2 SPOKEN FROM THE HEART (Scribner, $30)
3
By Laura Bush. The former first lady’s reflections on eight years in the White House and what came before.
3 WAR (Twelve, $26.99). By Sebastian Junger
2
Fourteen months embedded with the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley.
4 TO SAVE AMERICA: STOPPING OBAMA’S SECULAR- 5 THE PROMISE: PRESIDENT OBAMA, YEAR ONE
(Norton, $27.95). By Michael Lewis The murky world of financial derivatives.
1
SOCIALIST MACHINE (Regnery, $29.95)
By Newt Gingrich. More pummeling of the president.
1
(Simon & Schuster, $28). By Jonathan Alter Has the “Change We Can Believe In” materialized?
6 THE BIG SHORT: INSIDE THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE 7 THE BLUEPRINT: A PLAN FOR LIVING ABOVE
LIFE’S STORMS (Gotham, $25). By Kirk Franklin Wisdom from the Grammy-winning gospel artist.
8 THE BLUEPRINT: OBAMA’S PLAN TO SUBVERT THE
BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN (Viking, $30)
By Nathaniel Philbrick. Clarifying a bit of history.
3
CONSTITUTION AND BUILD AN IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY
(Lyons, $22.95). By Ken Blackwell & Ken Klukowski
9 THE LAST STAND: CUSTER, SITTING BULL, AND THE 10 THE WAY WE’RE WORKING ISN’T WORKING: THE
FOUR FORGOTTEN NEEDS THAT ENERGIZE GREAT
PERFORMANCE (Free Press, $28). By Tony Schwartz
Rankings reflect sales for the week ended May 23, 2010. The charts may not be reproduced without permission from Nielsen BookScan. Copyright © 2010 by Nielsen BookScan. (The right-hand column of numbers represents weeks on this list, which premiered in Book World on Jan. 11, 2004. The bestseller lists in print alternate between hardcover and paperback.)
6
Paperback Bestsellers at
voices.washingtonpost.com/political-bookworm
3 1 10 1 6
WEDNESDAY IN STYLE: Aimee Bender
MAX S. GERBER
BOOK WORLD
THIS WEEK
COMING IN STYLE
MONDAY House of Secrets, by Richard Hawke, is a close- to-the-headlines thriller about a U.S. senator having an affair with a campaign worker who is murdered.
TUESDAY In his absorbing novel Day for Night, Frederick Reiken explores the ways in which seemingly disparate people are connected.
WEDNESDAY The Particular Sadness of Lemon
Cake, by Aimee Bender, and American Music, by Jane
Mendelsohn, are oddly beautiful novels about young women overwhelmed by extrasensory impressions. The hero of
Ann Brashares’s fantastical romance My Name Is Memory
struggles to reconnect with a woman from his past lives.
And For Young Readers.
THURSDAY Linguist David Crystal’s A Little Book of
Language is geared to both young people and adults.
FRIDAY Anthropology of an American Girl, by Hilary
Thayer Hamann — a novel about the difference between first love and true love — was self-published before a mainstream publisher bought it.
SATURDAY In Craig Nova’s atmospheric new novel, The Informer, a prostitute in 1930 Berlin works as a double agent.
voices.washingtonpost.com/political-bookworm
Join us as we debate the issues and authors making news today.
6
Read our blog, Political Bookworm, which focuses on books that stir the national political conversation.
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