Billy Strayhorn

An extravagantly gifted composer, arranger, and pianist -- some considered him a genius -- Billy Strayhorn toiled throughout most of his maturity in the gaudy shadow of his employer, collaborator, and friend <a href="spotify:artist:4F7Q5NV6h5TSwCainz8S5A">Duke Ellington</a>. Only in the 1990s has Strayhorn's profile been lifted to a level approaching that of <a href="spotify:artist:4F7Q5NV6h5TSwCainz8S5A">Ellington</a>, where diligent searching of the Strayhorn archives (mainly by David Hajdu, author of the excellent Strayhorn bio Lush Life) revealed that Strayhorn's contribution to the <a href="spotify:artist:4F7Q5NV6h5TSwCainz8S5A">Ellington</a> legacy was far more extensive and complex than once thought. There are several instances where Strayhorn compositions were registered as <a href="spotify:artist:4F7Q5NV6h5TSwCainz8S5A">Ellington</a>/Strayhorn pieces ("Day Dream," "Something to Live For"), where collaborations between the two were listed only under <a href="spotify:artist:4F7Q5NV6h5TSwCainz8S5A">Ellington</a>'s name ("Satin Doll," "Sugar Hill Penthouse," "C-Jam Blues"), where Strayhorn pieces were copyrighted under <a href="spotify:artist:4F7Q5NV6h5TSwCainz8S5A">Ellington</a>'s name or no name at all. Even tunes that were listed as Strayhorn's alone have suffered; the proverbial man on the street is likely to tell you that "Take the 'A' Train" -- perhaps Strayhorn's most famous tune -- is a <a href="spotify:artist:4F7Q5NV6h5TSwCainz8S5A">Duke Ellington</a> song.

Still, among musicians and jazz fans, Strayhorn is renowned for acknowledged classics like "Lotus Blossom," "Lush Life," "Rain Check," "A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing," and "Mid-Riff." While tailored for the <a href="spotify:artist:4F7Q5NV6h5TSwCainz8S5A">Ellington</a> idiom, Strayhorn's pieces often have their own bittersweet flavor, and his larger works have coherent, classically influenced designs quite apart from those of <a href="spotify:artist:4F7Q5NV6h5TSwCainz8S5A">Ellington</a>. Strayhorn was alternately content with and frustrated by his second-fiddle status, and he was also one of the few openly gay figures in jazz, which probably added more stress to his life.

Classical music was Strayhorn's first and life-long musical love. He started out as a child prodigy, gravitating toward Victrolas as a child, and working odd jobs in order to buy a used upright piano while in grade school. He studied harmony and piano in high school, writing the music for a professional musical, Fantastic Rhythm, at 19. But the realities of a Black man trying to make it in the then-lily-white classical world, plus exposure to pianists like <a href="spotify:artist:3DtSOCXYU6o4EV0K1NgIKq">Art Tatum</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:0tg5uVI4VjzZOFzBryJZii">Teddy Wilson</a>, led Strayhorn toward jazz. He gigged around Pittsburgh with a combo called the Mad Hatters. Through a friend of a friend, Strayhorn gained an introduction to <a href="spotify:artist:4F7Q5NV6h5TSwCainz8S5A">Duke Ellington</a> when the latter's band stopped in Pittsburgh in 1938. After hearing Strayhorn play, <a href="spotify:artist:4F7Q5NV6h5TSwCainz8S5A">Ellington</a> immediately gave him an assignment, and in January 1939, Strayhorn moved to New York to join <a href="spotify:artist:4F7Q5NV6h5TSwCainz8S5A">Ellington</a> as an arranger, composer, occasional pianist, and collaborator without so much as any kind of contract or verbal agreement. "I don't have any position for you," <a href="spotify:artist:4F7Q5NV6h5TSwCainz8S5A">Ellington</a> allegedly said. "You'll do whatever you feel like doing."

A 1940-1941 dispute with ASCAP that kept <a href="spotify:artist:4F7Q5NV6h5TSwCainz8S5A">Ellington</a>'s compositions off the radio gave Strayhorn his big chance to contribute several tunes to the <a href="spotify:artist:4F7Q5NV6h5TSwCainz8S5A">Ellington</a> band book, among them "After All," "Chelsea Bridge," "Johnny Come Lately," and "Passion Flower." Over the years, Strayhorn would collaborate (and be given credit) with <a href="spotify:artist:4F7Q5NV6h5TSwCainz8S5A">Ellington</a> in many of his large-scale suites, like "Such Sweet Thunder," "A Drum Is a Woman," "The Perfume Suite," and "The Far East Suite," as well as musicals like Jump for Joy and Saturday Laughter, and the score for the film Anatomy of a Murder. Beginning in the '50s, Strayhorn also took on some projects of his own away from <a href="spotify:artist:4F7Q5NV6h5TSwCainz8S5A">Ellington</a>, including a few solo albums, revues for a New York society called the Copasetics, theater collaborations with <a href="spotify:artist:1HHWflV8iQWBTUf4QEkj74">Luther Henderson</a>, and songs for his friend <a href="spotify:artist:2I6nP70ltmOHi6xjJUXHMe">Lena Horne</a>. In 1964, Strayhorn was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus, aggravated by years of smoking and drinking, and he submitted his last composition, "Blood Count," to the <a href="spotify:artist:4F7Q5NV6h5TSwCainz8S5A">Ellington</a> band while in the hospital. Shortly after Strayhorn's death in May 1967, <a href="spotify:artist:4F7Q5NV6h5TSwCainz8S5A">Ellington</a> recorded one of his finest albums and the best introduction to Strayhorn's work, And His Mother Called Him Bill (<a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22RCA%22">RCA</a>), in memory of his friend. ~ Richard S. Ginell, Rovi