In this sturdy 500-page study Stuart Nicholson opts to eschew the usual birth-to-death trail of music biographers and replaces it with a collection of first-hand reminiscences. The effect is electric: Ellington comes to life before our eyes in what is, literally, a talking book as friends, family and colleagues take us from the black suburbs of Washington DC to parties at the White House - and finally to the great man's death from cancer in 1974. The research is astonishing, the editing immaculate. Impressions emerge as if by accident; Ellington and his cronies will be talking about the wild times they had when they first went to Harlem, for instance, and then there'll be a quiet little quote from his son Mercer which hints at a less than happy childhood chez his grandparents, while a procession of mostly nameless women, used and discarded, haunts the edges of the story. In the end, though, the music is the story, and if this knowledgeable retelling of it by the people who actually played it doesn't send you scuttling to the jazz section of your local recorded music emporium, nothing will.