‹ Deck
Billy Strayhorn card front Flip the card ⟳

Swing-Era Dossier

Billy Strayhorn

1915 – 1967

Born

Nov 29, 1915, Dayton, Ohio. Given name William Thomas Strayhorn. Father drank and moved the family chasing work; his mother repeatedly sent young Billy to his paternal grandparents in Hillsborough, North Carolina, where he found music on his grandmother's piano and Victrola. The family settled in Pittsburgh, where he grew up.

Died

May 31, 1967, New York City, age 51. Esophageal cancer (fought ~3 years). Wasted to roughly 80 lbs on a liquid diet; finished his last piece, "Blood Count," from his hospital bed and mailed the score to Ellington in Europe.

Instruments

Piano (primary). Self-taught on hymns at his grandmother's piano, then formal classical study at the Pittsburgh Musical Institute. Aspired to be a concert pianist — a path largely closed to Black musicians then — and brought a Debussy/Ravel impressionist harmonic language into jazz.

Nicknames

  • "Swee' Pea" — the one the band actually used. Coined by Ellington altoist Toby Hardwick, after the baby in the Popeye comic strip, for Strayhorn's small, gentle presence.
  • "Strays" / "Weely" — affectionate band variants.
  • "Bill" — what his mother called him; the source of Ellington's 1967 tribute album title ...And His Mother Called Him Bill.

Bands / years

  • Pittsburgh years (early–mid 1930s) — wrote a teen revue (Fantastic Rhythm) and the song that became "Lush Life" before he ever left town.
  • Duke Ellington Orchestra (1939–1967) — composer, arranger, second pianist, and Ellington's creative alter ego for ~28 years, until his death. Effectively his only employer.

Active

c. 1934–1967 (composing from his Pittsburgh teens through his death).

Signature tunes

"Take the 'A' Train" (the Ellington band theme), "Lush Life," "Chelsea Bridge," "Lotus Blossom," "Passion Flower," "Day Dream," "Something to Live For," "Blood Count."

Famous compositions

  • Strayhorn alone — "Take the 'A' Train" (written 1939, recorded 1941). Built from subway directions Ellington wrote out to his Harlem home. Became the Ellington orchestra's theme song — Ellington's calling card was another man's tune.
  • Strayhorn alone — "Lush Life." Music and lyrics, begun at ~16 in Pittsburgh (first titled "Life Is Lonely"); world-weary café-society sophistication written by a teenager who'd lived none of it. Premiered Nov 13, 1948, Carnegie Hall.
  • Strayhorn alone: "Chelsea Bridge," "Raincheck," "Passion Flower," "Johnny Come Lately," "A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing," "Lotus Blossom," "U.M.M.G.," "Blood Count."
  • Co-written with Ellington: "Something to Live For" (1939), "Day Dream" (1940), the suites — Such Sweet Thunder (1957), The Far East Suite (1966), A Drum Is a Woman (1956) — and the Nutcracker / Peer Gynt adaptations.
  • "Satin Doll" (1953): Strayhorn harmonized an Ellington riff sketch; his original lyrics were replaced by Johnny Mercer's.
  • Uncredited at the time: the "Sugar Hill Penthouse" section of Black, Brown and Beige (1943) and an unquantifiable share of "Ellington" output — the modern scholarly correction speaks of "Ellington–Strayhorn."

Interesting facts

  • Openly gay to his friends and the entire Ellington band — extraordinarily rare and brave in mid-century jazz. The band was protective; the organization was his refuge.
  • "Take the 'A' Train" was almost lost: Mercer Ellington fished a discarded draft out of a trash can — Strayhorn had thrown it away, sure it sounded too much like a Fletcher Henderson arrangement.
  • Lena Horne called him the love of her life and said she'd have married him; he coached her singing. (Myth to flag: she was not at his deathbed — she was touring Europe.)
  • He auditioned for Ellington in Dec 1938 by first showing how he'd re-arrange one of Duke's own tunes, then playing "Lush Life" — Ellington called the band over to listen.
  • President of The Copasetics, a charity fraternity of (mostly tap-dancing) entertainers founded in memory of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.
  • Civil-rights worker: a friend of Martin Luther King Jr.; wrote/conducted "King Fit the Battle of Alabam'" for Ellington's My People (1963).
  • Lived by "four freedoms" — freedom from hate, from self-pity, from fear of helping another more than himself, and from the pride of thinking himself better than his neighbor. Ellington recited them at his funeral.
  • The tribute: months after his death the band recorded _...And His Mother Called Him Bill_ (1967), all Strayhorn tunes — it won a 1968 Grammy and ends with Ellington alone at the piano on "Lotus Blossom" as the band packs up.
  • David Hajdu's biography _Lush Life_ (1996) and the 2007 PBS documentary it informed (Emmy + Peabody + Writers Guild in one year) restored his recognition.

Sources

Clips