Terry Teachout

Draws on previously unavailable sources including hundreds of private recordings made throughout the second half of the jazz master's life to assess his artistic achievements and personal arenas, sharing authoritative coverage of such topics as Armstrong's decision to break up his band and his quarrel with Eisenhower.

A Life of Louis Armstrong

Pops

An account of the public and private lives of the eminent jazz artist includes coverage of his slave heritage, the musical talent that inspired some 1,500 compositions and his relationships with numerous lovers. By the author of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong.

A Life of Duke Ellington

Duke

Henry Louis Mencken

A collection of 238 observations by the social commentator includes thoughts about the American political system, sex, crime, and vices

A Second Mencken Chrestomathy

When H. L. Mencken talked, everyone listened -- like it or not. In the Roaring Twenties, he was the one critic who mattered, the champion of a generation of plain-speaking writers who redefined the American novel, and the ax-swinging scourge of the know-nothing, go-getting middle-class philistines whom he dubbed the "booboisie." Some loved him, others loathed him, but everybody read him. Now Terry Teachout takes on the man Edmund Wilson called "our greatest practicing literary journalist," brilliantly capturing all of Mencken's energy and erudition, passion and paradoxes, in a masterful biography of this iconoclastic figure and the world he shaped.

A Life of H. L. Mencken

The Skeptic

A great artist who was also a good man. A genius born in poverty who became known in every corner of the world. An entertainer who knocked the Beatles off the top of the charts four decades after he cut his first record. An accomplished author and collagist who was witty, introspective, and unexpectedly complex. Terry Teachout has drawn on a cache of important new sources unavailable to previous biographers to craft a sweeping new narrative biography of Louis Armstrong, the twentieth century's most influential jazz musician.

City Limits

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.”

Documents the late ballet magnate's Russian heritage, love for American culture, four marriages, and ongoing legacy that has caused his works to be danced by prestigious companies continuously since 1948. 25,000 first printing.

A Brief Life of George Balanchine

All in the Dances

THE STORY: SATCHMO AT THE WALDORF is a one-man, three-character play in which the same actor portrays Louis Armstrong, the greatest of all jazz trumpeters; Joe Glaser, his white manager; and Miles Davis, who admired Armstrong's playing but disliked his onstage manner. It takes place in 1971 in a dressing room backstage at the Empire Room of New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where Armstrong performed in public for the last time four months before his death. Reminiscing into a tape recorder about his life and work, Armstrong seeks to come to terms with his longstanding relationship with Glaser, whom he once loved like a father but now believes to have betrayed him. In alternating scenes, Glaser defends his controversial decision to promote Armstrong's career (with the help of the Chicago mob) by encouraging him to simplify his musical style, while Davis attacks Armstrong for pandering to white audiences.

Terry Teachout

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