A Profile on Billy Strayhorn

     William (Billy) Thomas Strayhorn is a fondly remembered jazz composer and musician born on November 29, 1915 in Dayton, OH. His family moved to a suburb of Pittsburgh, PA while his mothers' family lived in Hillsborough, NC. Due to his father's recurring drunken sprees, Strayhorn was sent to stay with his family in North Carolina and spent many months there. His grandmother was his primary influence as a musician. At her house, he began playing hymns on the piano and and playing records on her record player. 

    He moved back to Pittsburgh to attend school and worked multiple different jobs to buy his first piano. In high school, Strayhorn was a member of the school band. While in Pittsburgh, he studied music at the Pittsburgh Music Institute. At the Pittsburgh Music Institute, he wrote a high school musical, formed a musical trio that played daily on a local radio station, and composed and wrote the lyrics for the songs "Life Is Lonely" ("Lush Life"), "My Little Brown Book", and "Something to Live For" all while in his teens. By age 19, he was writing for a professional musical, Fantastic Rhythm. 

    The song "Lush Life" is often referred to as Strayhorn's signature composition. He wrote most of the song while in high school and first performed it for the first time with the Duke Ellington Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on November 13, 1948. The song was written in the key of D-flat major. The melody is played and sung over complex chord changes, compared to other recognizable jazz pieces at the time, with a tune that evokes a dreamlike state and melodically describes what a "lush life" would be.

    After seeing Duke Ellington play in Pittsburgh in 1933, Strayhorn first explained, and then showed the band leader how he would have arranged one of Duke's own pieces. Ellington was impressed enough to invite other band members to hear Strayhorn's opinion. Ellington then arranged for Strayhorn to meet him when the band returned to New York. Strayhorn worked for Ellington for the next 25 years as an arranger, composer, occasional pianist and collaborator until his early death from cancer. 

    Strayhorn was openly gay and participated in many civil rights causes. Through Ellington's son Mercer, Strayhorn met his his first partner, African American musician Aaron Bridgers, whom Strayhorn lived with until Bridgers moved to Paris in 1947. 

    As for contributions to the jazz community, Strayhorn created up to 40 percent of the Ellington Orchestra's material. He was also able to tour internationally with the Ellington Band. Although there is not much on him interacting with the Big Six composers we were able to discuss in class, his collaboration with and connection to Ellington is significant and it seems as though a lot of Strayhorn's accomplishments were done in tandem to Ellington's music career. 

    Strayhorn died on May 31, 1967. He was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 1964 which ultimately led to his death in 1967 in the company of his partner, Bill Grove, not in Lena Horne's arms as has often been falsely reported.