The Ellington Century

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The Ellington Century [Hardcover]

David Schiff (Author

Book Description

Publication Date: February 6, 2012

Breaking down walls between genres that are usually discussed separately--classical, jazz, and popular--this highly engaging book offers a compelling new integrated view of twentieth-century music. Placing Duke Ellington (1899-1974) at the center of the story, David Schiff explores music written during the composer's lifetime in terms of broad ideas such as rhythm, melody, and harmony. He shows how composers and performers across genres shared the common pursuit of representing the rapidly changing conditions of modern life. The Ellington Century demonstrates how Duke Ellington's music is as vital to musical modernism as anything by Stravinsky, more influential than anything by Schoenberg, and has had a lasting impact on jazz and pop that reaches from Gershwin to contemporary R&B.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

"The Ellington Century is a wonderful journey through the world of music and art. If you are already an aficionado of Ellington's music, you will enjoy the author's informative and detailed analysis of the composer's work and musical influences. If you are less familiar, this book puts Ellington's music in perspective with the great 'classical' composers of the twentieth century. David Schiff's remarkable insight into the historical and musical parallels between these composers is a delight to read and his references are vast, from Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and Stravinsky's Agon to television's Sesame Street. Schiff writes with a sense of humor and an enthusiasm for Ellington's music that comes out on every page."--George Manahan, Music Director, American Composers Orchestra

"David Schiff points us forward, observing that 'Ellington's music asks us to see with our ears and hear with our eyes.' Writing as a composer and scholar, he has a gift for making complex ideas strikingly clear. His insights move across a huge terrain of twentieth-century culture, as he builds bridges in his musical and cultural analysis where many have not seen a connection. Yet each musical work, each artist, is given his or her equal due. In this sense, he has met the spiritual and cultural challenge of Ellington's life work."--Marty Ehrlich, Composer/Instrumentalist, Associate Professor of Improvisation and Contemporary Music, Hampshire College

About the Author

David Alan Schiff is R.P. Wollenberg Professor of Music at Reed College. He is a composer, journalist whose articles have appeared in publications including the New York Times and the Atlantic, and the author of George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue and The Music of Elliot Carter.

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Product Details

Hardcover: 336 pages

Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (February 6, 2012)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0520245873

ISBN-13: 978-0520245877