Dvořák to Duke Ellington & Maverick Maestro by Maurice Peress

In preparing a remembrance of Maurice Peress for the Final Chorus column published this February I was intrigued by a description of his 2004 book, Dvořák to Duke Ellington, which traces a direct teacher-to-student line from Antonín Dvořák, during his visit to America, to Gershwin, Copland, and Ellington. I sought it out and found it so enjoyable that I also quickly read his more recent memoir, Maverick Maestro. In addition to being an accomplished conductor, Peress was also a gifted storyteller. Dvořák to Duke Ellington does much more than trace the educational path of its catchy premise. Peress uses that arc to relay to us all of the history he excitedly discovered while doing research for the several re-creation concerts that marked his late career. He lays out the importance of African-American notables such as Paul Laurence Dunbar, Will Marion Cook, and especially James Reese Europe whose work he grew to know intimately while preparing a recreation of Europe’s 1912 Clef Club Concert at Carnegie Hall. That concert came less than twenty years after Antonín Dvořák’s famous statement that America’s musical contribution to the world would come from its black citizens. The Clef Club concert was a moment of artistic achievement for the intelligentsia that would go on to create the Harlem Renaissance. The music performed proudly incorporated ragtime and held the pro