Terry Teachout is the drama critic for The Wall Street Journal. He blogs about the arts at www.terryteachout.com. His previous books include Pops: The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong, All in the Dances: A Brief Life of George Balanchine, The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken, and A Terry Teachout Reader. A trained musician who has played jazz professionally, he has also written two plays, Satchmo at the Waldorf and Breaking and Entering, and the libretti for three operas by Paul Moravec, The Letter, Danse Russe, and The King's Man.

The story of the man who became a music legend. Edward Kennedy 'Duke' Ellington was arguably the greatest jazz composer of the twentieth century-and an impenetrably enigmatic personality whom no one, not even his closest friends, claimed to understand. His music, too, was powerful and entirely original. Andre Prévin compared him to Stravinsky and Prokofiev, Percy Grainger to Bach and Delius. But in fact he was very much his own man. The grandson of a slave, Ellington dropped out of high school to become a musical showman of incomparable suavity, as comfortable in Carnegie Hall as in the nightclubs where he honed his famous style. When he raised his fingers, the music that blazed out had its own unique richness and range. He wrote hundreds of compositions, many of which remain beloved standards, and sought inspiration in an endless string of transient lovers, concealing himself behind a smiling mask of flowery language and ironic charm. In this revealing biography, Terry Teachout skillfully peels away the countless layers of Ellington's evasion to tell the unvarnished truth about a creative genius and musical pioneer.