The biweekly Down Beat takes its jazz seriously and is not given to tossing off thoughtless accolades. But last week four-fifths of the magazine was devoted to one man, Edward Kennedy EllingtonĀthe Duke. One tribute: "The first American composer to catch in his music the true jazz spirit."
The magazine had its eye on an anniversary coming up next month; it will be a quarter century since Duke Ellington moved into Harlem's high-kicking Cotton Club with a ten-man band and began to beat out jungle-style rhythms. Those were the days when Paul Whiteman's "symphonic jazz" was the rage and Gershwin's Rhapsody in...
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