Vince Prudente has worked with some of the biggest names in popular music – Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Lionel Hampton, Woody Herman. No name is bigger than Duke Ellington, who the trombonist and author of this book calls, “My mentor, my encourager, my boss, my accompanist, my confidant, my friend”.
Prudente worked with Duke Ellington during the last two years of the composer’s life. It is a period in Ellington’s career that is unjustly overlooked comprising as it does some of his most powerful and personal music, informed by Ellington being at a stage in his life when he was exercised by thoughts of his mortality, negotiating with eternity as it were.
The fact that the life and the work were essentially the same thing for Ellington is the mark of a true artist and is the essence of this book. It is evident from his writing here, that this fusing of the life and the work is true also of Vince Prudente. Advised by his therapist to start a journal and to try to write something every day, The Essence and Duke Ellington is the result. Whilst an autobiographical outline can be descried within its pages, the book is much more than that. It is the distillation of the wisdom accrued over the course of a lifetime as a professional musician, rich in experience, on and off the road. It is a celebration of family, friends and colleagues along the way and also a voyage of discovery, every challenge, every frustration, presenting the opportunity to learn and grow. Vince Prudente has created nothing less than a parable on a life lived well, told with humility; courage, honesty and integrity evident on every page.
The book is available at...
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