Currently reading: Music Is My Mistress, by Duke Ellington
I’m really looking forward to this one: told in his own way, in his own words, a symphony written by my compositional hero, the man who created over 1500 compositions: not only songs that all the world has sung, but also suites, sacred works, music for stage and screen and symphonies.
Passionate about his music and the people who made music, he counted as his friends hundreds of the musicians who changed the face of music throughout the world: Bechet, Basie, Armstrong, Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald and Sinatra, to name a few of them. There are 100 photographs to give us an intimate view of Duke’s world: his family, his friends, his associates.What emerges most strongly is his commitment to music, the mistress for whom he saves the fullest intensity of his passion. “Lovers have come and gone, but only my mistress stays”, he says.
