Jazz is no longer the fresh young thing it was.
One name, however, stands apart. Generation after generation of jazz musicians have come to worship his music. His is the authentic 20th-century genius to put along such names of the past as Beethoven, Schubert and Tchaikovsky. Ellington is perhaps the supreme example that proves this theory. He exemplified all the virtues of pre-War jazz while, through his natural vision, always seeking the musical innovations exploited later by the modernists.