"If you want to know what real jazz criticism is, read Celebrating the Duke. It is a fitting memorial to an outstanding critic and writer."--Jazz Journal

Celebrating the Duke offers readers a perceptive, panoramic survey of jazz as revealed, in illuminating detail, through the lives and music of its heroes and heroines, including Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Jimmie Lunceford, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Albert Ayler, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and a rich cache of writings on "America's greatest composer," the Duke himself.
Foreword by Studs TerkelNew introduction by Ira Gitler