King of All, Sir Duke: Ellington and the Artistic Revolution

His total and contagious awe for one of jazz's greatest composers, bandleaders and ambassadors notwithstanding, Lavezzoli doesn't add much to Ellington's legend. A fellow musician as well as a musicologist, Lavezzoli avoids standard biography in this paean to his hero, describing Ellington's life in just a few pages. The bulk of the book explores other musicians' links to Ellington through interviews with musicians and jazz critics about his life and legacy. Certainly, Ellington has influenced countless musicians viz the book's title, from Stevie Wonder's tribute song but Lavezzoli only partially succeeds at delineating these links. He convincingly cites rocker Frank Zappa's intriguing debts, as a composer and a businessman, to Ellington, but other connections remain vague: that Ellington and funk star George Clinton share an ""emphasis on freedom of expression in a large band context"" isn't pithy enough. Lavezzoli's interviews sometimes afford vivid behind-the-scenes details: according to one musician, Ellington would chastise a band member who had been carousing too much by featuring him, thereby making him work harder. But often the interviews lapse into lingo too obscure for the nonspecialist, e.g., Butch Ballard describes a fellow musician playing with ""A lot of press rolls, closed choke-cymbal stuff, and a whole lot of 2/4."" (Apr.) Forecast: Ken Burns's recent PBS blockbuster has summoned a ready audience for all things jazz. But with its combination of overly familiar historical information and inaccessible interview material, this book is unlikely to reach many readers.