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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for October 21, 2013

TT: Up to the minute with Duke

October 21, 2013 by Terry Teachout

the-maids-version-book-corner-ftr.jpgParade, the Sunday newspaper supplement that I’ve been reading since I was a little boy, ran a feature this weekend called “3 Must-Reads for Fall” in which it listed Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington alongside Wally Lamb’s We Are Water and Daniel Woodrell’s The Maid’s Version:

Terry Teachout, author of an acclaimed Louis Armstrong bio, explores the life of Duke Ellington, the visionary artist, charismatic ladies’ man, and African-American trailblazer who became the 20th century’s most influential jazz composer.

I wish my mother, who was a devout reader of Parade, had lived to see that.
In addition to the Parade piece, two important newspaper reviews appeared over the weekend. Bill Desowitz called Duke “thorough and fascinating” in USA Today, while Ted Gioia, the noted jazz critic and scholar, wrote about it in greater detail for the Dallas News:

Teachout probes deeply into Ellington’s offstage associations. Affairs and flings long hidden from view are laid out for our inspection, as well as Ellington’s quarrels and feuds. His complex, often unconventional relationship with his family is also presented in all its quirkiness. Where other biographers have held back, often due to personal loyalty to Ellington, Teachout digs in all the deeper….Ellington was a man who worked hard over decades to present a sanitized, polished front to the public. Even his autobiography, Music Is My Mistress, stands out for how little it reveals about the author. Teachout tears through this facade and offers the most penetrating, bluntly honest account to date of Ellington’s life.

Finally, the Robson Press just announced that the British edition of Duke will be published on November 4. It will have a slightly different title–Duke: The Life of Duke Ellington–and a newly designed dust jacket. Here’s what it looks like:
1375263_10152003365737193_1335996112_n.jpg
As you can see, the portrait of Ellington that Gotham Books used for the front cover of the American edition has been reproduced on the back cover of the British edition. (The interior design of both books is identical.)
All in all, I’d say we’re off to a pretty good start.
* * *
In case you missed the original announcement, I’ll be chatting about Duke with jazz blogger Marc Myers at the Upper East Side Barnes & Noble tonight at seven p.m. For more information, go here.

TT: But wait, there’s more!

October 21, 2013 by Terry Teachout

Popova.jpgMaria Popova of Brain Pickings calls Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington “an enthralling read from cover to cover”:

This is a masterwork of dimensional insight into an icon who sought to flatten and flatter himself as much as possible and to shroud his exceptional artistry in exceptional artifice, a man woven of paradoxes, who, despite his chronic failings of private self-control, exerted his every faculty on controlling his public image. And yet, somehow, Teachout manages to peel away these protective layers and expose the flawed human being beneath them by elevating rather than diminishing Ellington’s humanity, enriching rather than discrediting his legacy.

Wow!
Read the whole thing here.

TT: Your daily dose of Duke (cont’d)

October 21, 2013 by Terry Teachout

Duke Ellington, John Lamb, and Sam Woodyard play for Joan Miró at the Cote d’Azur in 1966:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday and Wednesday.)

TT: Just because

October 21, 2013 by Terry Teachout

Ethel Merman appears as the mystery guest on What’s My Line?:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday and Wednesday.)

TT: Almanac

October 21, 2013 by Terry Teachout

“There is no heroic poem in the world but is at bottom a biography, the life of a man; also it may be said, there is no life of a man, faithfully recorded, but is a heroic poem of its sort, rhymed or unrhymed.”
Thomas Carlyle, “Sir Walter Scott”

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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