Duke Ellington

Based on the 1998 Caldecott Honor book written by Andrea Davis Pinkney and illustrated by Brian Pinkney, Duke Ellington is--initially--a rather dull affair, with an uninspiring chronicle of Edward Kennedy Ellington's life from his birth in 1899 through his trek to Harlem and first appearance at the famed Cotton Club in 1927 in a band called "The Washingtonians." But then something happens: the language grows beat poetic as mellifluous narrator Forest Whitaker describes the musicians in Duke Ellington's orchestra ("each cat took the floor and wiped it clean") and the music itself--"Mood Indigo," "Take the A Train" and "Black, Brown & Beige"--seamlessly intertwines foot-tapping rhythm around the words. Whether kids today will be drawn into this iconographic biographical sketch of the "king of the keys" is another question entirely, however. Recommended, with reservations. Aud: E, I, P. (R. Pitman)