Terry Teachout Libros

En un mundo ideal uno escribiría siempre lo que quiere, no lo que puede. Y haría los libros conforme a un plan y ese plan no cambiaría con el tiempo, sino que abriría espacios en ese mismo tiempo para imponer nuestro deseo. La realidad, al menos en mi caso, es muy distinta. Desde hace algún tiempo los libros se organizan a su gusto a partir del material que voy reuniendo casi sin darme cuenta: notas dispersas, poemas, ensayos y traducciones Todo cobra forma por azar o al dictado de circunstancias que me rebasan, y el resultado final aparece sólo cuando quiere, o cuando me necesita para completarse. No es que los libros se hagan solos (su esfuerzo me ha supuesto escribirlos, después de todo), pero sí que llegan a su término por caminos o carriles que nunca habría supuesto.

Teachout draws on a cache of sources unavailable to previous Louis Armstrong biographers to craft a sweeping new narrative biography of the greatest jazz musician of the twentieth century.

A major new biography of Duke Ellington from the acclaimed author of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was the greatest jazz composer of the twentieth century—and an impenetrably enigmatic personality whom no one, not even his closest friends, claimed to understand. The grandson of a slave, he dropped out of high school to become one of the world’s most famous musicians, a showman of incomparable suavity who was as comfortable in Carnegie Hall as in the nightclubs where he honed his style. He wrote some fifteen hundred compositions, many of which, like “Mood Indigo” and “Sophisticated Lady,” remain beloved standards, and he sought inspiration in an endless string of transient lovers, concealing his inner self behind a smiling mask of flowery language and ironic charm. As the biographer of Louis Armstrong, Terry Teachout is uniquely qualified to tell the story of the public and private lives of Duke Ellington. A semi-finalist for the National Book Award, Duke peels away countless layers of Ellington’s evasion and public deception to tell the unvarnished truth about the creative genius who inspired Miles Davis to say, “All the musicians should get together one certain day and get down on their knees and thank Duke.”