Copyright Date:
2011
Edition Date:
2012
Release Date:
12/13/11
Pages:
173 pages
ISBN:
1-935248-06-5
ISBN 13:
978-1-935248-06-4
Dewey:
Fic
LCCN:
2011038029
Dimensions:
21 cm.
Language:
English
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews
Utilizing his encompassing knowledge of Ellington's music, personnel and decades-long touring, Carlon (a veteran middle-school teacher) presents a kid's-eye view whose drama centers on the band's 1939 European tour. Danny, orphaned at 9, stows away on Duke's tour train. Adopted as a gaffer and drum polisher, later becoming the composer's musical copyist, Danny narrates a life of touring: exciting, sometimes boring, rich with musical highs and adoring fans worldwide. Schooled by band members in both reading (Dickens, Marcus Garvey) and trumpet lessons, Danny comes across a bit more as a vehicle for the rich chronicle than an authentic child with whom readers can identify. (Indeed, Carlon fashions Danny as an older man looking back at life with Duke; there's an extraneous epilogue detailing a bucolic Irish retirement.) Danny's awe is leavened by small adventures with such band friends as cornetist Rex Stewart and Rabbit (a.k.a. alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges). Tension ratchets during the tour abroad, as Belgians hide machine guns in haystacks and Nazis detain the band's Scandinavian-bound train for hours in Hamburg. Carlon unflinchingly characterizes the Nazi hatred of "Niggermusik." Two references to the n-word contextualize it appropriately, as a reprehensible tool of Nazi hate speech. In schools where students are lucky enough to experience classroom jazz studies, this title, combining rich musical history and a "you are there" approach, is a natural. (Historical fiction. 8-12)
Winner of the Leapfrog Global Fiction Prize "Duke used to say that the individual sound of a musician revealed his soul. Mick Carlon is a 'soul' storyteller."--Nat Hentoff, author of Jazz Country "A ripping good yarn. . . . Plunges the reader into the world of Duke Ellington and the America of 1939."--Brian Morton, author of The Penguin Guide to Jazz "Wonderfully convincing and authentic characterizations. . . . A thoroughly enjoyable read."--Dan Morgenstern, author of Living with Jazz "We encounter not only Duke's genius, but his character and humanity. This is one train you won't want to get off!"--Dick Golden, radio host "When this marvelously evocative novel finds a home in the school curriculum, kids across America will be downloading Duke."--Jack Bradley "Excellent command of voice, period, and ethnic dialect . . . clear love and in-depth knowledge of Ellington and his band."--Alexandria LaFaye, author of The Keening Nine-year-old Danny stows away on Duke Ellington's train one Georgia night. Through Danny's eyes, we meet some of America's finest musicians as he accompanies them on their 1939 European tour, when the train was briefly held in Germany. Says Nat Hentoff, "I knew Duke Ellington for twenty-five years. The Ellington in this book is the man I knew." Mick Carlon is a twenty-seven-year veteran English/journalism high- and middle-school teacher. A lifelong jazz fan, he regularly plays jazz in his classroom and has turned hundreds of students into jazz fans. He says, "If young people are simply exposed to the music and stories of these American artists, they will make a friend for life."
Common Core
STEAM
Graphic
Novel
High/Low
Chapter
Book
Large
Print
Series Tracker
Manga
Big
Book
Board
Book
Hot
Title
Adult
Language
Mature
Content
Ebook
Ebook
MUA (Multi User Access)
Light Novel
