Duke: The Musical Life of Duke Ellington - Hardcover

Bill Gutman has been a freelance writer for more than three decades. In that time, he has written more than 200 books for children and adults, the majority of them in the sports field with an emphasis on biography and sports history. After graduating from Washington College in 1965, Mr. Gutman did graduate work at the University of Bridgeport (Connecticut), then took his first writing job with the Greenwich Time, a daily newspaper in Greenwich, Connecticut. He began as a reporter and feature writer in 1967, later becoming the paper's sports editor. After a short stint in the advertising world, Mr. Gutman returned to writing as a full time freelancer in 1972. His first book was a Grosset & Dunlap adult-level biography of former basketball great, Pistol Pete Maravich, published in 1972. Pistol was a Sports Illustrated Sports Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection. Since that time, Gutman has written biographies of a wide variety of sports stars. Gutman has penned numerous biographies for the elementary and middle group readers, while the subjects of his recent young adult biographies, written for Pocket Books, include Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson, Shaquille O'Neal, Grant Hill, David Robinson, Tiger Woods, Ken Griffey, Jr., Brett Favre, Sammy Sosa, and Marion Jones. Among Bill Gutman's non-sports books are biographies of former New York Jets football coach, Bill Parcells, Parcells: A Biography, and a biography of former president Andrew Jackson.In the course of publicizing his books, Bill Gutman has appeared on numerous radio programs as well as several television shows, including "A Current Affair," Chet Coppock's "NewSporTalk," and "Sportstalk Live with Brian Kenny." He was recently interviewed for an HBO documentary on Bobby Thomson's 1951 epic home run, a film being produced by Black Canyon Productions and scheduled for airing in July of 2001.

Bill Gutman is a longtime freelance writer who has published more than two hundred books for both children and adults, in fiction and nonfiction. He has written biographies of such diverse personalities as Magic Johnson, Bill Parcells, Michael Jordan, jazz great Duke Ellington, Pistol Pete Maravich, and former president Andrew Jackson. In addition, he has worked with the likes of former New York Giants linebacker Pepper Johnson (Won for All: The Inside Story of the New England Patriots’ Improbable Run to the Super Bowl), baseball star Bobby Thomson (The Giants Win the Pennant! The Giants Win the Pennant!), and former Rangers and Red Sox manager Kevin Kennedy (Twice Around the Bases) on as-told-to books. He has also written numerous sports histories, interviewed former baseball players on their transition to the real world (When the Cheering Stops), spoken with twenty-five extreme-sport, high-risk athletes in the world (Being Extreme), and talked with members of the 1968 New York Jets and 1969 New York Mets (Miracle Year, 1969: Amazing Mets and Super Jets). He has also ghosted a family memoir with Thomas and Betty Jones of Big Stone Gap, Virginia. They are the parents of seven children, including former NFL running backs Thomas and Julius Jones (Blessings from the Dust).
 
Mr. Gutman is currently writing a series of novels and novellas about a New York City detective working in the 1920s (the Mike Fargo Mysteries). Both Duke: The Musical Life of Duke Ellington and Being Extreme are currently available from Open Road Media.