Artist: Billy Strayhorn
Genre(s):
Jazz
Discography:
Great Times! Piano Duets with Billy Strayhorn
Year: 1950
Tracks: 9
An luxuriously gifted composer, organizer and piano player -- about considered him a mastermind -- Billy goat Strayhorn toiled passim about of his matureness in the cheap shadow of his employer, cooperator and ally, Duke Duke Ellington. Solely in the last-place x has Strayhorn's visibility been lifted to a grade approach that of Duke Ellington, where diligent searching of the Strayhorn archives (in the main by David Hajdu, source of the splendid Strayhorn bio Soaker Lifetime) revealed that Strayhorn's donation to the Edward Kennedy Ellington bequest was far more than extended and construction complex than once thought process. In that respect are several instances where Strayhorn compositions were registered as Ellington/Strayhorn pieces ("Daylight Dream," "Something to Hold up For"), where collaborations betwixt the two were listed only under Duke's diagnose ("Satin Skirt," "Kale Hill Penthouse," "C-Jam Vapors"), where Strayhorn pieces were copyrighted under Ellington's name or no nominate at entirely. Even tunes that were listed as Strayhorn's lonely bewilder suffered; the proverbial piece on the street is probably to enjoin you that "Take the 'A' Train" -- peradventure Strayhorn's most famous melodic phrase -- is a Duke Edward Kennedy Ellington song.
Tranquil, among musicians and nothingness fans, Strayhorn is far-famed for acknowledged classics like "Whiteness lotus Bloom," "Alky Life," "Rain Check," "A Blossom Is a Lovesome Matter" and "Stop." Piece bespoken for the Edward Kennedy Ellington phrase, Strayhorn's pieces often catch their possess climbing nightshade sapidity, and his larger full treatment bear consistent, classically influenced designs quite an aside from those of Duke Ellington. Strayhorn was alternately content with and thwarted by his minute banana term, and he was likewise unity of the few openly gay figures in jazz, which believably added more stress to his life.
Classical music was Strayhorn's figure 1 and lifelong musical theater passion. He started out as a christopher Fry prodigy, gravitating to Victrolas as a nestling, workings unmated jobs in order to buy a used barely pianoforte spell in ground level school. He studied harmony and forte-piano in high school day, composition the medicine for a professional musical, Fantastic Beat, at 19. Just the realities of a inkiness man trying to make it in the then-lily-white graeco-Roman world, plus exposure to pianists like Prowess Arthur Tatum and Chemise Mount Wilson, lED Strayhorn toward jazz; he gigged roughly Pittsburgh with a combo called the Mad Hatters. Through a champion of a booster, Strayhorn gained an introduction to Duke Ellington when the latter's band stopped in Pittsburgh in 1938. After audience Strayhorn do as, Ellington immediately gave him an date, and in January 1939, Strayhorn affected to Newly York to join Edward Kennedy Ellington as an transcriber, composer, episodic pianist and henchman without so often as any genial of sign up or verbal parallelism. "I don't have whatsoever position for you," Duke Ellington allegedly aforesaid. "You'll do whatsoever you feel wish doing."
A 1940-41 difference with ASCAP that kept Ellington's compositions cancelled the receiving set gave Strayhorn his vainglorious probability to chip in several tunes to the Duke Ellington bandbook, among them "Later Totally," "Chelsea Bridge," "Greyback Reb Occur Latterly" and "Passionateness Bloom." Over the age, Strayhorn would get together (and be minded credit) with Edward Kennedy Ellington in many of his large-scale suites, like Such Sweet Roar, A Drum Is a Adult female, The Perfume Suite and The Far Eastward Suite, as intimately as musicals like Leap For Delight and Sabbatum Laugh and the score for the flick Soma of a Slay. Beginning in the 1950s, Strayhorn likewise took on around projects on his possess aside from Edward Kennedy Ellington, including a few solo albums, revues for a Freshly York sheik monde called the Copasetics, dramatics collaborations with Luther Henderson, and songs for his friend Lena Horne. In 1964, Strayhorn was diagnosed with genus Cancer of the oesophagus, aggravated by age of dope and imbibing, and he submitted his last paper, "Blood Count," to the Edward Kennedy Ellington band patch in the infirmary. Soon subsequently Strayhorn's dying in Crataegus laevigata 1967, Duke Ellington recorded 1 of his finest albums and the best introduction to Strayhorn's turn, And His Female parent Called Him Bill (RCA), in retentiveness of his supporter.
