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The award-winning author/illustrator team of Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney--creators of the popular picture book Alvin Ailey--present a swinging, vibrant picture title about the jazz composer Edward Kennedy Ellington, better known as Duke. Full color.

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School Library Journal Review

Gr 1-5ÄA royal introduction to the piano prince. Told in a swingy conversational tone and highlighting the musician's childhood, early ragtime days, and stellar rise to popularity, playing at the Cotton Club and, later, Carnegie Hall, this is a jazzy treat. It is rare to find text that describes music so well. Phrases such as "sassy ride on his cymbal," "musical stream," and "purple dash of brass" carry the auditory experiences of the Duke's music right off the page. Young readers will find more than just a few facts here. They will learn what Duke Ellington did for the jazz world, how his music was played, and the legacy he left behind. Brian Pinkney's distinctive scratchboard, gouache and oil paintings are a harmonious complement to Andrea Pinkney's text. Bright, wild colors on soft neon backgrounds are beautifully balanced with black-and-white highlights. It is the blending of words, symbols, and pictures that bring this subject to life. A page of biographical information and impressive source notes conclude the presentation. This book swings. Don't miss it.ÄBeth Tegart, Oneida City Schools, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Ages 5^-8. Jazz continues to attract picture-book artists, who find in the improvisational music a unique opportunity to let their artistic imaginations soar. Too often, however, they soar well beyond the reach of a young audience. Not so with this swinging introduction to the life and music of Duke Ellington. Andrea Davis Pinkney's jaunty, slangy text tells a story and does it with a rhythm and style that manage to capture Ellington's era without sounding silly to today's kids. Describing Duke at 19, she says, "He had fine-as-pie looks and flashy threads. He was a ladies' man with flair to spare." Zipping through Ellington's childhood in Washington, D.C., his early disenchantment with the parlor music of the day, weighed down by its "umpy-dump" beat, and his introduction to ragtime, the text takes Ellington and his young band to Harlem, where success awaited at the legendary Cotton Club. Brian Pinkney's paintings, gorgeous throughout, take center stage when the story turns to Ellington's music. Much has been written about Ellington's painterly approach to musical composition, the way he used his orchestra as an instrument, manipulating color, tone, and mood much as an artist uses oil on a canvas. Yet no one has brought that concept to vivid, stunning life more effectively than Pinkney. His wildly colored yet subtly harmonious paintings are the perfect accompaniment to the author's impressionistic descriptions of the sounds achieved by Ellington's soloists and by the band as a whole: a careening car from the Harlem-bound A train illustrates the "subway beat" of Sonny Greer's bass drum; curling kite tails emerge from Toby Hardwick's sax, "a musical loop-de-loop with a serious twist." Text and art work in perfect harmony here, each creating additional layers of meaning that wouldn't have been possible without the presence of the other. And best of all, the joy in Ellington's music, and the joy his musicians felt in playing it, is apparent on every page. --Bill Ott

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Andrea Davis Pinkney has written several acclaimed books for middle grade readers, including the novels Bird in a Box, a Today Show Al Roker Book Club pick, and With the Might of Angels , a book in the Dear America series. She is also the author of the nonfiction book Let It Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters , a Coretta Scott King Author Honor winner. Andrea's many picture books include Sit In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down , a New York Times best-seller and a Jane Addams Honor Book, which was illustrated by her husband, Brian Pinkney. She and her family live in Brooklyn, New York.

Brian Pinkney (www.brianpinkney.net) has frequently collaborated with his wife, Andrea Davis Pinkney. Some of their other books include, Sojourner Truth's Step-Stomp Stride , Boycott Blues: How Rosa Parks Inspired a Nation , and Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra , for which Brian was awarded a Caldecott Honor. Brian was also a Caldecott Honoree for The Faithful Friend by Robert D. San Souci , and he won the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for In the Time of the Drums by Kim L.Siegelson.