[Dixielandjazz] on Harvey Cohen's Ellington book

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

Here's a link from the sign and sight page to the extended review of a new 
Ellington tome in New York Review of Books, and the sign and sight blurb to the 
clip. The review is a decently substantial work in itself 


http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/oct/28/grandest-duke/?page=1

Geoffrey O'Biran introduces Harvey Cohen's biography of Duke Ellington which is 
a gripping description of how the musician shaped America and American him. And 
of his beginnings: "Music was not a predestined career choice for Ellington. He 
liked to draw and attended a commercial art school, and in his teens ran a 
sign-painting business. But by age fifteen he had discovered the profits and 
pleasures of music, acquiring the musical knowledge he needed not systematically 
- he had abandoned Mrs. Clinkscales's lessons early on - but by absorbing what 
he could from every musician he encountered."