Nobody ever really liked “Black Beauty,” the working title of my Duke Ellington biography, so I spent a day last week trying to think of a better alternative. Actually, it took about five minutes for the light to come on, after which I said to myself, “Duh, I know–why not call it Mood Indigo: A Life of Duke Ellington?”
As a rule I don’t care for obvious titles, but sometimes the obvious solution to a problem is also the best one, and no sooner did this one come to me than I got the strong feeling that I was finally on the right track. I ran Mood Indigo past my publisher and Mrs. T, both of whom gave it a very enthusiastic thumbs-up. The next day I posted the new title on Twitter and Facebook and got unanimously favorable responses. So until and unless a decisively superior idea occurs to me, Mood Indigo it is.
Now all I have to do is finish the damn book!
Archives for March 15, 2011
TT: One never knows, do one?
Courtesy of YouTube, here is the Norman Petty Trio’s 1954 recording of “Mood Indigo.” (Yes, that Norman Petty.) My father owned a copy of the original single, and I played it constantly when I was a little boy. It was the first song by Duke Ellington that I ever heard. Who knew?
TT: Almanac
“Violence is a form of stupidity.”
W.R. Burnett, The Asphalt Jungle