Duke Ellington, CEO

Desse ótimo artigo de Adam Gopnik sobre Duke e os Beatles:

Ellington's ear, his energy, his organizational abilities, the sureness of his decisions are a case study for management school. (Consider the way he fired Charles Mingus for fighting with Tizol, fondly but with no appeal: "I'm afraid, Charles - I've never fired anybody - you'll have to quit my band. I don't need any new problems. Juan's an old problem... I must ask you to be kind enough to give me your notice.") These are not ordinary or secondary gifts. They were the essence of his genius. Ellington had an idea of a certain kind of jazz: tonal, atmospheric, blues-based but elegant. He took what he needed to realize the ideal he had invented. The tunes may have begun with his sidemen; the music was his. This is not a secondary form of originality, which needs a postmodern apologia, in which "curating" is another kind of "creating." It is the original kind of originality.