Duke Ellington (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers)

Rating:
Summary: A fun and artistic juvenile biography of "Duke" Ellington
Review: I have been working my way through all of the volumes in Mike Venezia's Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists series and knew he had this companion series on Composers as well, but this volume on Duke Ellington was the first of those I have managed to stumble across. Of course, there is an inherent difference of some significance between doing artists, where you can show pictures of an artist's paintings, and covering composers who write music. So it is not surprising that Venezia relies on more of his zany cartoons to tell Ellington's story, which certainly fits his idea of helping children to learn about famous people in fun ways. What was surprising was that Venezia continues to employ works of art as well, such as Victor Haboush's "The Jazz Expression." Of course there are also photographs of Ellington, his various bands, and the Cotton Club in Harlem.

This is essentially a biography of Ellington, which matters only because when Venezia was writing about artists there was an element of art appreciation in most of his volumes. Certainly Venezia tries to come up with something comparable, explaining how Ellington mixed different instrumental sounds in his band the way painters mixed colors (it seems impossible for Venezia to get too far away from his artistic roots). Of course, without actually listening to Ellington's music it is pretty much impossible to do a decent job of providing a lesson in music appreciation, but that is something all biographers of Ellington have to contend with, not just Venezia. As a biography of Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington this small volume provides all the key details with enough highlights to flesh out the man's celebrated career. Other volumes in the Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers series look at Aaron Copland and George Handel. I would be particularly interested in seeing how Venezia handles those two composers, who were not exactly known for being big time fun characters (at least not until Venezia tells their life stories).

Rating:
Summary: Duke Ellington by Mike Venezia
Review: The book is only 32 pages and with only 11 pages devoted to actual text, he did an excellent job in projecting DE musical career. A wonderful gift to a child in the 4-8 age bracket.