Free (ADE-DRM PDF) Duke Ellington's America [Jazz Legend Biography+Cultural History]

[ATDrake]

Duke Ellington's America by Harvey G. Cohen is his layperson-accessible comprehensively researched academic biography of the eponymous pioneering African-American jazz music legend (Wikipedia) as well as a thorough examination of his surrounding historical cultural context and the ways in which it shaped him and was shaped by him in return, free courtesy of the University of Chicago Press.

This is their featured Free E-Book of the Month for November and won Choice Magazine's CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award, as well as receiving an Honourable Mention for the Association of American Publishers' PROSE Book Award. I kind of wonder if the allcaps award names are actually supposed to acronym to something or other like SPECTRE in the Bond films (and its similar expies in, e.g the Darkwing Duck cartoon: FOWL, the Fiendish Organization for World Larceny) does.

Anyway, this is really very nifty, with vintage photographs and other tidbits from archival sources, cultural references & analysis, and apparently a bunch of new interviews with Ellington's contemporaries and associates, etc. For some reason, it's in PDF rather than the ePub that UCP have been giving us for the past several months (nothing in a quick skim of the contents seems to warrant PDF layout to accomodate for special display features), but it's still a very nice offering.

Currently free, throughout November @ the publisher's special promo page (ADE-DRM PDF in return for your valid email address).

And this has been the selected 3rd (non-repeat) free ebook thread of the day.

It had a bit of competition from Phoenix Pick's latest (and if they'd offered another Resnick that I'd actually read and enjoyed and could firmly recommend, that might have won), but even as a PDF, this is clearly the niftiest book of the day and looks profoundly edutaining about a core figure and portion of recent US cultural history.

Enjoy!

Description
Few American artists in any medium have enjoyed the international and lasting cultural impact of Duke Ellington. From jazz standards such as “Mood Indigo” and “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” to his longer, more orchestral suites, to his leadership of the stellar big band he toured and performed with for decades after most big bands folded, Ellington represented a singular, pathbreaking force in music over the course of a half-century. At the same time, as one of the most prominent black public figures in history, Ellington demonstrated leadership on questions of civil rights, equality, and America’s role in the world.

With Duke Ellington’s America, Harvey G. Cohen paints a vivid picture of Ellington’s life and times, taking him from his youth in the black middle class enclave of Washington, D.C., to the heights of worldwide acclaim. Mining extensive archives, many never before available, plus new interviews with Ellington’s friends, family, band members, and business associates, Cohen illuminates his constantly evolving approach to composition, performance, and the music business—as well as issues of race, equality and religion. Ellington’s own voice, meanwhile, animates the book throughout, giving Duke Ellington’s America an intimacy and immediacy unmatched by any previous account.

By far the most thorough and nuanced portrait yet of this towering figure, Duke Ellington’s America highlights Ellington’s importance as a figure in American history as well as in American music.

[ATDrake]

Just a reminder that this is the last day to get this freebie if you haven't already.