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As a composer, bandleader, and pianist, Duke Ellington topped all other jazz musicians of his day. Ellington infused the beats and the rhythms of jazz with a more classical sound and intelligence, elevating jazz to an honored status. Carin T. Ford's new biography examines the life and career of this exceptional entertainer.

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Three musicians and one author, all of whom lived in roughly the same era (1890s to 1970s), are the subjects of this series for the secondary level. Ford's biography of Ellington focuses on the jazz pianist's emphasis on doing things his own way--from skipping out on piano lessons as a child growing up in a middle-class Black neighborhood of Washington, D.C., to his innovative style of music and his belief that African Americans should fight for equal rights by being a positive example rather than speaking out politically (though Ford highlights those times when Ellington did offer support to the civil rights cause). In contrast, Paul Robeson spent his entire life fighting for racial and economic justice, and he paid the price for his efforts. His political involvement grew in large part out of his personal experience, as the book points out. He wanted to be a lawyer, but his race prevented him from rising to the level to which his intelligence and work ethic qualified him. When he became an actor and musician, his travels and performances were constrained by prejudice and legal discrimination--constraints he didn't experience in Europe or in the Soviet Union, which gave Robeson a special welcome and embraced the civil rights cause. One of his greatest disappointments was the way other African-American leaders refused to support him when he was blacklisted and his passport revoked for eight years, thus denying him a livelihood in Europe, where he remained popular.

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