Beyond category

"No one led a band like Duke Ellington, no one led a life like Duke Ellington, and no one wrote music like Duke Ellington: he was one of a kind, beyond category.". "One of the twentieth century's greatest artists, Ellington led a fascinating life. Despite this, there have been few major biographies and none that adequately assesses his musical achievement. This is the first biography to draw on the thousands of pages of scrapbooks, letters, business records, musical manuscripts, and photographs in the Duke Ellington archives at the Smithsonian Institution. In Beyond Category, John Edward…