Beyond Category: The Life And Genius Of Duke Ellington [Paperback]

John Edward Hasse (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 22, 1995

One of the twentieth century's greatest composers, Duke Ellington (1899–1974) led a fascinating life. Beyond Category, the first biography to draw on the vast Duke Ellington archives at the Smithsonian Institution, recounts his remarkable career: his childhood in Washington, D.C., and his musical apprenticeship in Harlem; his long engagement at the Cotton Club; the challenging years of the depression; his tours to Europe and into America's deep South, where he helped lower racial barriers; the postwar years when television and bebop threatened to eclipse the big bands; Ellington's own triumphant comeback at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival; his collaborations with Billy Strayhorn, Johnny Hodges, and Ella Fitzgerald; as well as five decades of hits and masterpieces that constantly broke new ground.The art of Duke Ellington was a musical expression of the African-American experience, in all its pain, pride, and glory. He composed his music as he composed his life—with flair, passion, and individuality—and no book reveals the man and his artistic evolution more brilliantly than Beyond Category.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

One of the 20th century's greatest composers, Duke Ellington (1899-1974) led a fascinating life. The first biography to draw on the vast Duke Ellington archives at the Smithsonian Institution, this book recounts the entirety of his remarkable career: his childhood in Washington, D.C. and musical apprenticeship in Harlem; his long engagement at the glamorous, gangster-owned Cotton Club; the challenging years during the Depression; his tours to Europe and into America's deep South, where he helped lower racial barriers; the postwar years when television and bebop threatened to eclipse the big bands; Ellington's own triumphant comeback at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival; his collaborations with Billy Strayhorn, Johnny Hodges, Ella Fitzgerald, and John Coltrane, among others; and of course, the music itself, five decades of hits and masterpieces that constantly broke new ground.

John Edward Hasse serves as Curator of American Music at the Smithsonian Institution, curator of its traveling exhibition Beyond Category, and producer and annotator of the boxed set of recordings by the same name.

From Publishers Weekly

"He captured the sounds of trains, planes, babies, and lions and tigers and bears with his orchestra," says trumpeter Marsalis in his poetic tribute to the great jazz composer and performer, Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (1899-1974). Hasse, curator of American music at the Smithsonian Institution and of a traveling exhibition called Beyond Category: The Musical Genius of Duke Ellington, is similarly comprehensive in cataloging the minutiae--meaningful and otherwise--of Ellington's illustrious life and career. Drawing on previously untapped documents made available by Mercer Ellington's donation of his father's archives to the National Museum of American History, Hasse traces the Duke's development from his childhood in Washington, D.C., to New York City's Cotton Club to a career that took him on a seemingly endless tour through North America, Europe and the Near East playing with the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie and John Coltrane. To help those who want to hear the achievement, Hasse ends each chapter with the "Essential Ellington" recordings for the years covered in that chapter. Accompanied by 119 photographs from the Ellington archives, Hasse has written a delightful and finely detailed biography of an American legend at work.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (March 22, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306806142
• ISBN-13: 978-0306806148
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #296,145 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Top Ellington biography of the 3 I've read so far, May 29, 2004

By 

souldrummer (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Beyond Category: The Life And Genius Of Duke Ellington (Paperback)

Beyond Category is the best introduction to Duke Ellington's life and music. It was created to coincide with a Smithsonian exhibit and it offers a quality professional biography of Ellington's life and times. The author considers Ellington's life a series of problems to solve for his mind. Some of these problems are how to learn piano, how to start a band, how to compose with a partner, how to react to the recording band, how to deal with the loss of key soloists, how to compose larger works and ends up hitting many of the high points of Ellington's life and works.

Most of the new research at the time came from Mercer Ellington's enormous donation of his warehouse of materials for the Duke Ellington collectionl. Yet as a book intended for a popular audience, the musical content of this trove was not really fully dealt with. Mercer's collection comes through in the fabulous photographs that are interspersed throughout the book. It may have been better to have all the photographs grouped in several sections as not everyone will have time to read the entire book I suppose.

One very helpful aspect to the book was that at the end of each chapter there was a guide to key recordings of Ellington's life. This type of material is very helpful to those new to Ellington's life.

I found the prose to be clear and adequate although not as lively as some of the other excellent jazz biographies I've read such as Chambers' Milestones.

This book gets a 4.5 star rating for anyone new to Ellington. It's accessible, readable, and gives you several ideas to approach the true gold mine of Ellington's music.

For jazz researchers and scholars, there's still room for a knockout biography of Ellington that adds the information from the Smithsonian collection to wide ranging interviews and even better prose. Researchers will want to read this, but I'm not sure how much of this material is groundbreaking.

4.5 stars for neophytes
3.5 stars for Ellington scholars

4 stars overall

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A compeling portrait of one of America's greatest composers, April 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Beyond Category: The Life And Genius Of Duke Ellington (Paperback)

This is a thoroughly enjoyable story of the life and times of one of America's greatest and most prolific composer/musicians. It characterises the "Duke" as a caring, people loving person with close family ties, and a quest for excellence against all odds. The Forward by Wynton Marsalis is clear and insightful. The author has accomplished an easy to follow sequence of events enhanced by photos and drawings. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the genre.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellently researched book, April 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Beyond Category: The Life And Genius Of Duke Ellington (Paperback)

As an old time lover of Jazz, but rather new to really examining the lives behind its great musicians, and particularly Duke Ellington, I started out with "Duke Ellington: A Spiritual Biography" by Janna Tull Steed (great book (and just 192 pages) for anyone new to the Duke & jazz). It was Steed's book that really built the interest to explore Ellington in more depth and, Hasse's book is just what I was looking for. It is a hefty book but it is absolutely and completely accessible, just what is required to approach this great man of Jazz.