Lush Life
Readers who have admired Duke Ellington or Lena Horne will probably enjoy David Hajdu's Lush Life, a 1996 biography of Billy Strayhorn, a pianist and songwriter who played an important role in the lives of these two performers, and many others. Strayhorn (1915-67) has been thought of as "one of the greatest composers in the history of American music."
Billy was raised near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and fell in love with the piano at an early age. One of the first pieces he composed was "Concerto for Piano and Percussion", which was performed at his high school graduation. Shortly after this, he was introduced to Duke Ellington, who hired him as a songwriter and arranger for the famous Ellington orchestra. David Hajdu stated, "Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington inhabited the same world, but each for his own reasons and on his own terms." Billy stayed with the Duke the next 30 years of his life.
Billy's homosexuality was never hidden and had no negative effects on his career in the music business. Lena Horne, one of his closest friends, once admitted, "Since I couldn't have Billy, I let myself fall in love with Lennie [Hayton]." Jimmy Stewart, after a piano duet with Billy, remarked, "He was a fine gentleman and a heck of a pianist. I never sounded so good."
After meeting Martin Luther King, Jr., in the 1960s, Billy and Lena took part in a civil rights rally in Jackson, Mississippi, under the supervision of Medger Evers. While Lena was singing, a white man named Byron De La Beckwith, standing in front of the enthusiastic audience at the Jackson Fairground, walked out. Several days later, he shot and killed Medger Evers.
Billy Strayhorn wrote hundreds of songs and suites, either for or with Duke Ellington. When the Ellington orchestra was on the road, the Duke would call Billy in New York to tell him what type of song he needed. One friend was amazed at how Billy worked at his assignments. "He was writing a symphonic piece right there in his head, sitting in the park."
But Billy seldom got much credit for his songs, mainly because the songs and records sold better under the Duke Ellington name. This did not bother Billy as much as it did the Duke and a few other close friends. Finally in 1965, after learning he had cancer, Billy gave his first (and last) concert to a sell-out crowd at the New School auditorium in New York City. Cancer of the esophagus took his life in 1967; however, many friends felt his heavy smoking and drinking also had something to do with it.
Billy Strayhorn's most famous song, "Take the A Train", will always be remembered as a Duke Ellington orchestra theme. Another of his songs, "Lush Life", much more complex to perform, seems to be an apt theme of Billy Strayhorn's life, in David Hajdu's outstanding biography.