Scan barcode
efbeckett's review
4.0
Disorienting at first if you are expecting a traditional biography in the "this happened then this happened then, etc" chronological manner, as I was. Because Hodges' career was inextricably tied up with that of Duke Ellington and it's unlikely that one would be reading about the former without familiarity with the latter, Chapman wisely approaches the material from a thematic angle, with a loose relation to chronology rather than just write the Ellington story yet again with an emphasis on Hodges. So we get an entire chapter on the dream team of Hodges and Billy Strayhorn, which covers territory from 1940 up to the latter's death in 1967, then the next chapter goes back in time to an overview of the next topic. Because jazz was not covered by "respectable" publications in its early days, there are frustrating gaps of knowledge even in the life of a household name like Ellington, never mind for a figure like Hodges, whose sound would have been more familiar to people than his name. Chapman has not dug up anything revelatory, but having all of the information in one place is more than enough in such cases.
More...