Ian Carr traces the course of jazz composition through the work of Duke Ellington, Gil Evans and Kenny Wheeler. By 1940
Ellington had found the perfect band, which included bassist Jimmy Blanton , his first major tenor saxophonist Ben Webster , and his amanuensis, pianist and composer Billy Strayhorn. The result was a string of masterpieces: Jack the Bear, Ko-Ko, Concerto for Cootie, Cotton Tail, Dusk , Bojangles, Portrait of Bert Williams , Warm Valley and I Got It Bad. In 1943,
Ellington produced the groundbreaking extended composition Black, Brown and Beige. Gil Evans was profoundly influenced by this great Ellington period, as can be detected in his reworking of Gershwin's My Man's Gone Now.