"I just couldn't be shackled" : fortunate son, 1899-1917
"Soft and gut-bucket" : becoming a professional, 1917-1926
"Only my own music" : with Irving Mills, 1926-1927
"The utmost significance" : at the Cotton Club, 1927-1929
"I better scratch out something" : becoming a genius, 1929-1930
"A higher plateau" : becoming a star, 1931-1933
"The way the President travels" : on the road, 1933-1936
"Swing is stagnant" : diminuendo in blue, 1939-1939
"The eyes in the back of my head" : with Billy Strayhorn, 1938-1939
"The sea of expectancy" : the Blanton-Webster band, 1939-1940
"A message for the world" : jump for joy, 1941-1942
"I don't write jazz" : Carnegie Hall, 1942-1946
"More a business than an art" : into the wilderness, 1946-1955
"I was born in 1956" : crescendo in blue, 1955-1950
"Fate's being kind to me" : apotheosis, 1960-1967
"That big yawning void" : alone in a crowd, 1967-1974
Appendix. Fifty key recordings by Duke Ellington.
