Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
![Loading indicator](/images/ajax-loader-bar.gif)
Billy Strayhorn (1915-1967) was one of the most accomplished composers in the history of American music, the creator of a body of work that includes such standards as "Take the 'A' Train," "Lush Life," and "Something to Live For." Yet all his life Strayhorn was overshadowed by another great composer: his employer, friend, and collaborator, Duke Ellington, with whom he worked as the Ellington Orchestra's ace songwriter and arranger.
Lush Life, David Hajdu's sensitive and moving biography of Strayhorn, is a corrective to decades of patchwork scholarship and journalism about this giant of jazz. It is also a vibrant, absorbing account of the "lush life" led by Strayhorn and other jazz musicians in Harlem and Paris.
A musical prodigy who began a career as a composer while still a teenager in Pittsburgh, Strayhorn came to New York City at Duke Ellington's invitation in 1939; soon afterward he wrote "'A' Train," which became the signature song of the Ellington Orchestra, one of the most popular jazz bands in the country.
For the next three decades, Strayhorn labored under a complex agreement whereby Ellington thrived in the role of public artist to Strayhorn's private one, often taking the bows for Strayhorn's work. Strayhorn was alternately relieved to be kept out of the limelight and frustrated about it. In Harlem and in the cafe society downtown, the small, shy black composer carried himself with singular style and grace as one of the few jazzmen to be openly homosexual.
His compositions and elegant arrangements made him a hero to other musicians, but when he died at age fifty-two, his life cut short by alcohol abuse and cancer, few people fully understood the vital role he played in the Ellington Orchestra's development into a vehicle for some of the greatest, most ambitious American music of this century.
Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
![Loading indicator](/images/ajax-loader-bar.gif)
Previews available in: English
Showing 4 featured editions. View all 4 editions?
Edition | Availability |
---|---|
1
Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn
2013, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
in English
1466842784 9781466842786
|
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
2 |
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
3
Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn
June 26, 1997, North Point Press
Paperback
in English
- North Point Pbk edition
0865475121 9780865475120
|
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
4
Lush life: a biography of Billy Strayhorn
1996, Farrar, Straus, Giroux
in English
- 1st ed.
0374194386 9780374194383
|
aaaa
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
Book Details
Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references (p. 277-279), discography (p. 281-293), and index.
Classifications
External Links
The Physical Object
ID Numbers
Source records
Scriblio MARC recordIthaca College Library MARC record
Internet Archive item record
marc_openlibraries_sanfranciscopubliclibrary MARC record
Library of Congress MARC record
Internet Archive item record
marc_nuls MARC record
Better World Books record
marc_columbia MARC record
Excerpts
Community Reviews (0)
Feedback?History
- Created April 1, 2008
- 18 revisions
Wikipedia citation
×CloseCopy and paste this code into your Wikipedia page. Need help?
July 31, 2024 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
April 17, 2024 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
March 8, 2023 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
August 17, 2021 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
April 1, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from Scriblio MARC record |