jazzsight profiles

                                     Duke Ellington with Billy Strayhorn

"He would sit down and write music like he was writing a letter."

Billy Strayhorn:"Portrait of a Silk Thread"

By John Twomey

The Hudson River flows beside the red leaves of late October as it passes the embankment of Riverside Park. At 107th Street, where Billy Strayhorn lived in a building called 'The Masters' facing the park, the tree-line drops down from Manhattan brick and asphalt into a sparkling red and gold canopy of fall foliage. As the Earth's seasonal axis drops the sunset far south and west with the fanfare of golden cloud ray reflections that shoot upward into the dimming blue sky, it seems the right atmosphere to mull over Strayhorn's life. He always felt that the best part of the day was 'halfway to dawn'.  

He moved into 'The Masters' fairly late in his short life, and although he had lived in the building's vicinity for decades, the sturdy walls that purposefully dampened the noise of other practicing artists offered the sanctuary he needed to live out the days and nights of his life- much as he had described them in his 1936 composition, "Lush Life". If a person ever dispensed a psychological blueprint of his life early on, Strayhorn did. Nothing, it seemed, could separate him from the destiny he deftly described back in Pittsburgh, before he had ever met Duke Ellington:

I used to visit all the very gay places,

Those come what may places

Where one relaxes on the axis

Of the wheel of life

To get the feel of life

From jazz and cocktails.

 The girls I knew had sad and sullen gray faces

With distingue traces

That used to be there, you could see where

They'd been washed away

By too many through the day

Twelve o'clock tales.

 Then you came along with your siren song

To tempt me to madness.

I thought for a while that your poignant smile

Was tinged with the sadness of a great love for me.

Ah, yes, I was wrong,

Again I was wrong.

 Life is lonely again

And only last year

Everything seemed so sure.

Now life is awful again,

A trough full of heart

Could only be a bore.

 A week in Paris will ease the bite of it.

All I care is to smile in spite of it.

I'll forget you, I will

While yet you are still

Burning inside my brain.

 Romance is mush

Stifling those who strive.

I'll live a lush life in some small dive

And there I'll be while I rot with the rest

Of those whose lives are lonely, too.

Thirty years later, he would be stretched out reading a book on the backseat of an open black Impala convertible, as his friends Dr. Martin and Marian Logan drove the sunny roads through the Catskills, stopping at country stores and vegetable stands along the way. Most of the time, Billy would be oblivious to the passing scenery, engrossed in a book and a gin cocktail below the window level of the seat. "Arthur would be looking at the countryside and say, 'Strays, there's a beautiful farmhouse,' or whatever. Strays would say, "Wonderful, Arturo, wonderful! Please describe it to me, won't you?" and he'd keep reading and sipping on his cocktail." (1) 

Billy Strayhorn was born on November 29, 1915, in Dayton, Ohio. He was the fourth child of Lillian and James Strayhorn. An older sister, Sadie had been born prematurely, and hadn't survived. A second child, James Jr. was doing fine. A second son, Leslie, died of convulsions after falling while learning to walk. After Billy was born, a sister, Georgia, was born, and then another boy, John, in 1924. Theodore in 1926, then premature twins in 1928, Samuel and Harry, both of who died shortly after birth.

Billy's parents, Lillian and James, had both been raised in comfortable, working-family environments. Lillian, from North Carolina, graduated from Shaw University. She was soft-spoken and used elegant wording as she spoke.

James was a descendant of the family that founded the first whiskey distillery down south after the Civil War. He was brought up comfortably. His mother had played the piano, and appreciated music and fine art. 

After moving his family around to a string of unsuccessful jobs that led nowhere, Billy's father "became a bitter person and a drinker", said his daughter Lillian. "My father shouldn't have been born when he was born- that was his first mistake…He was bright and had a lot of personality, and he probably would have done very well years later. But back then, who needed a bright black man with personality? That goes against the grain when you have to put your head down and have a family to raise. So, being blessed with a sharp tongue and a temper- he became a bitter person- a bitter person with a lot of frustration." (2)

When he drank, he beat the children, said family friend Robert Conaway. (3) Billy's mother looked out for him as best she could, and they remained close throughout their lives. 

The family settled in Pittsburgh, taking vacations in Hillsborough, N.C., where Billy would visit the Victorian house that his grandparents lived in. He "found himself" there, getting some attention and affection. He was encouraged to play the piano by his grandmother, picking out songs he remembered from church.

In Pittsburgh, Billy remembered, "During grade school I had no music, except what one ordinarily gets in grade school…group singing and that's about all. One thing I wanted was to play the piano. You can't learn to play the piano if you haven't got one."(4)

He started selling papers to earn money. The corner he chose to sell was occupied by the Pennfield Drug Store, in the upper middle class Jewish district. The druggist hired him to work behind the soda fountain counter, and as a delivery boy after school.

"I finally bought myself a piano and started to play it. I started to study, and the more I learned, the more I wanted to learn…It wasn't all that easy, but I guess if you want something hard enough it just gets done…I got that piano." (5) He also earned money to pay for sheet music and lessons taught by Charlotte Catlin, a black woman who worked in a popular music store in Pittsburgh. 

At age eleven, Billy made a friend by the name of Harry Herforth, an eleven-year old white boy from a different street in the neighborhood. Both of them were more interested in music than sports. Both were readers, and compared the books they read. They treated the local library almost reverently. Billy also liked Frick Park, which covered 340 acres in Pittsburgh, on which grew 135 varieties of trees. He and Harry would walk the trails and "talked about composers, authors, playwrights…" (6)

When Harry visited Billy's home, the only conversation was a "Hello" to Billy's mother, and one in return. Billy's father would ignore them. They both went on to attend Westinghouse High School, which had an enrollment of 400. On the music faculty was Carl McVicker, who encouraged all the students to play musical instruments. 

"Mr. McVicker instilled self respect in those of us who were his students, because he respected us regardless of our background", said Fritz Jones, one of his students better known as Ahmad Jamal. (7)

 McVicker said of Billy, "I never heard a student play that way before or after", referring to a Strayhorn performance of Grieg's "Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 16." (8)

McVicker said Strayhorn was "earnest, hardworking…an intellectual. He had a broad base of knowledge of academics, although he learned everything we could teach him about music…He didn't play in the swing band. He wasn't interested. He was a serious pianist and concentrated strictly on the concert repertoire." (9)

By June of 1934, however, Billy had already heard Duke Ellington's Orchestra at a one- night stopover in Pittsburgh. What struck Billy the most during the entire performance was one chord. "…That's what really got me. He had a chord, which I have never discovered. I haven't heard it since. I couldn't figure this chord out. I went home after going to see this show at the Penn Theater in Pittsburgh, and I couldn't figure out what was in that chord, it was just wonderful." (10) 

Another music teacher named Jane Patton Alexander taught him both piano and harmony instruction. Around this time in High School, Harry Herforth joined with Strayhorn to form a trumpet and piano duet for school meetings and functions.

Westinghouse High School also featured an "Orchestra Club" of 25 players, picked from the larger high school orchestra, which played classical music. Strayhorn was the only black member. This band played some of Pittsburgh's downtown hotels.

At his high school graduation in the winter of 1934, Strayhorn publicly premiered his first extended composition, "Concerto For Piano And Percussion". The percussionist on the piece, Mickey Scrima, later went on to become a well-known swing drummer with trumpeter Harry James. "The audience loved it", said Scrima. "It was a lot of fun…I don't know how much they understood it, mind you- if they realized how sophisticated this piece was, and how extraordinary it was that this kid in their school had written it". (11) 

Classmate Dorothy Ford Gardin remembered, "Well, Strayhorn, he was…a genius. He was very much to himself. Some might have called him a little oddball or something, because he didn't socialize much. But he was too busy with his work…" (12)

Billy studied French and dressed well. He became president of the Westinghouse High School Pen Club, and had a subscription to The New Yorker. He used fine diction when he spoke, using an extensive vocabulary. Scrima recalled that "All he did day and night was concentrate on the only thing he cared about, the only thing he wanted- to go on doing what he did on the day of our graduation: be a classical concert pianist." (13)

Lacking financial aid to attend college, he continued working at Pennfield Drugs behind the counter, mixing sodas and making deliveries. He wanted to have enough money to pay his own tuition when he found a school that he liked. 

Harry Herforth, who received a scholarship to attend The New England Conservatory of Music, recalled that Billy had shown interest in several colleges "But was discouraged because of his race and could not get the necessary financial aid. The very idea of a black concert pianist was considered unthinkable." (14) Harry himself later played first assistant chair with the Boston Symphony.

A year after graduating, Billy agreed to write the words and music for the Westinghouse High School Class of 1935's Annual Revue, which that year was entitled "Fantastic Rhythm". The show premiered on May 23.

Mixing bits of Gershwin-style composition with his own style as exhibited in "Concerto for Piano and Percussion", the musical was a hit with the locals. In fact everyone in town who saw it was talking about how great it was. Technically, it was as good as most things produced professionally on Broadway at that time.

The main organizing force behind the show from the start was a Westinghouse band mate of Billy's, Boggy (pronounced Bogie) Fowler. A natural showman, Fowler knew a good show when he saw one, and after witnessing the enthusiasm of the high school crowd, he decided to take the show public. Fowler organized the cast, handling the publicity and getting two investors to put up $500.00. Strayhorn handled the production, and recalled:

"…In those early days, what I was doing was arranging, composing, and lyric writing, but I thought nothing of it- I was just doing it to try and make the show a success." (15) Fred Staton, who worked on the show, recalled the genius with which Strayhorn was writing. "…he would sit down and write music like he was writing a letter…whole scores!" (16) There is hardly any surviving music from the show.

But in his in-depth study of Strayhorn, "Something to Live for", Walter van de Leur technically describes the piece "Ugly Ducklin'", which Billy wrote for a dance orchestra in this same time frame. (It is) "…a surprisingly hip and harmonically advanced piece, with a haunting, chromatic circling melody. To underscore the tune, Strayhorn turned to a harmonic concept that had been present in the verses of virtually all of his pre-1939 songs (including Lush Life): a two-chord ostinato in lieu of the expected traditional chord sequence. The ostinato consists of a tonic chord and its altered dominant over a two-bar bass line. Most striking is the anticipation of the dominant, which comes a beat and a half "too early": pure bebop language…Strayhorn gives the bass the flatted fifth of the altered dominant, which causes the chord to sound as its tritone-related dominant. The ostinato stops only to yield to one-bar interjections at the end of each ten-bar phrase and finally to give way to a more regular bridge built on a rhythmically placed chord sequence." (17)  

In the publicity for "Fantastic Rhythm", Strayhorn added an "e" to the end of "horn", so that it would more closely resemble the spelling of one of Pittsburgh's most prominent black families, the Horne's, from which Lena came.

The show was well received, and moved out from Pittsburgh to other theaters in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh's Billy Eckstine joined the evolving cast in 1937. Strayhorn dropped out of sight after the first few performances, replaced by the young Errol Garner, another local Pittsburgh pianist.  

After six years at the drug store, he had put away enough money to attend the Pittsburgh Musical Institute. He began studying with a music theory class in 1936. His teacher, Charles N. Boyd, was an impressive musician, and a friend of Albert Schweitzer. When Strayhorn was in his second term at the school, Boyd died of a heart attack while playing the organ in his home. Boyd had, in his short time with Strayhorn, been a tremendous influence. His sophistication as a mentor was everything that Billy had missed with his own father. "He was so wonderful that I didn't think there was anyone else there who could teach me. So I didn't stay," said Billy. (18)

Billy stayed away from his home as much as he could. His father's drinking had turned the Strayhorn house into a chaotic terror zone, but Billy did stay close to his mother.

At this time he began hanging out with drummer Mickey Scrima and another young man named Bill Esch. Scrima said of Esch,"…If you wanted to know about any band in the country…he knew about every band that ever played a note of music." (19)

Esch and Scrima bought Billy an Art Tatum solo on a 78 record, which soon had to be replaced because Billy wore it out listening to it so often. Scrima remembers, "What he realized…was that everything he loved about classical music was there, in one form or another, in jazz- and here was a place he could apply himself." (20)

Billy, now 23, soon formed a jazz trio with clarinetist Jerry Eisner and drummer Calvin Dort. "They were a fine, professional little band, no amateur act." Remembered Pittsburgh trumpeter Billy May. (21) Early in 1938 the group became a quintet, adding bassist Bob Yagella and vibes player "Buzzy" Mayer. In March of 1938 the trio made three demo sides. That summer they were the featured entertainment at Rakuen Lakes, a summer resort nearby. The next gig that autumn, over the state line in West Virginia, was a disaster. The band was well received until a patron made a racist remark about Billy loud enough for drummer Calvin Dort to hear. Dort was so enraged that he kicked his entire drum set at the person who made the remark, and chaos resulted. The band escaped in a truck back to Pennsylvania.  

Billy took a gig at a bar playing piano in the East Liberty part of town. The club was where both black and white musicians hung out. Through clarinetist Eisner, Billy hooked up with drummer Bill Ludwig (no relation to the drum maker) to provide arrangements for Ludwigs's12-piece band.

His reputation as a great arranger had spread among the musicians of Pittsburgh, and he was writing more scores for a variety of Swing bands. He still worked at the drug store, and was often asked to play piano at the delivery destinations for an extra tip. 

David Pearlman, a young pharmacy student who met Billy at the Pennfield Drug store, was aware of Billy's extraordinary talent. Pearlman was studying at the University of Pittsburgh's College of Pharmacy. In class, Pearlman sat next to George Greenlee, who was the Pharmacy school's first black student.

Greenlee's uncle, a wealthy man, who it was said had made his fortune hijacking beer trucks and running numbers rackets, owned Pittsburgh's Negro League baseball team, "The Crawfords". He also owned the ballpark, Greenlee Field, as well as two of Pittsburgh's best and busiest nightclubs, the Crawford Grill One and Crawford Grill Two. 

Pearlman asked Greenlee if he would ask his uncle to introduce Billy to some big name musicians. Greenlee remembers"…I had never met this fellow Billy or heard him play. So I said, 'David, are you sure this guy is that good?' He said, 'Believe me'…it turned out that my uncle was having a big party that night for the band that was opening in town the following evening. I could set everything up at the party for this guy to meet the incoming bandleader, Duke Ellington. Otherwise, I'd have to wait a week and introduce him to the next bandleader, Basie." (22)

As soon as George Greenlee was introduced to Ellington, he alluded to Strayhorn; "Duke, a good friend of mine has written some songs, and we would like for you to hear them…(23)

Duke told him to come backstage with his friend after the first show the following day.

Ellington and Strayhorn
 

George and Billy met at the theater the next day and went up to Ellington's large dressing room, which included a piano. Duke was reclining in a chair, while someone styled his hair. As the pair approached and introduced themselves, Duke never opened his eyes. He asked Billy to sit down at the piano and play.

Strayhorn sat down and announced in a calm voice that he would play a piece that Ellington had just performed in the show. He duped it perfectly, note for note.

When he finished, he said just as calmly, "Now this is how I would play it." When he was finished, Ellington was standing behind him staring over his shoulder at the keyboard. Ellington asked his valet to go get Harry Carney, Johnny Hodges and Ivie Anderson. As the trio of Ellington veterans stood behind Billy at the keyboard, Duke asked him questions about his education and background.

Not quite sure what to do with him, Ellington "...had an idea for a lyric. He said: You go home and write a lyric for this,' and I did." (24) According to van de Leur in his book "Something to Live For, The Music of Billy Strayhorn", "The lyric he referred to may be the one Strayhorn set to an earlier instrumental work credited to Ellington, T.T. on Toast,… recorded by the orchestra December 19, 1938, twelve days after the two composers first met." (25) 

In his own account of the day, Leornard Feather reported that Strayhorn "ran over a few original tunes at the piano [at his first meeting with Ellington]. He couldn't leave them with Duke as they had never been written down. Duke was sufficiently impressed to invite Strayhorn to arrange one of them for the band." (26)

Billy returned the following night with the completed work. He then penned arrangements of "Lonely Again" and later, wrote arrangements for his own tunes, "Lush Life" and "Something to Live For". His writing style is noticeably different from Ellington's, but he wrote with the personalities of the band in mind, writing the names of the band's soloists on the manuscripts. His Pittsburgh writing for such local bands as the "Moonlight Harbor Band" and Rex Edward's Orchestra had provided him with enough knowledge to seamlessly infuse his ideas into Ellington Orchestra arrangements. He wrote with the familiar Ellington concepts in mind, yet the music was his: unique, distinct, and appearing 'out of the blue' to the seasoned Ellington band. Billy also penned an arrangement of the standard "Two Sleepy People", for which he was given twenty dollars. When he later brought it to the theatre, Ellington looked it over and then walked it right out on to the stage where it was performed. The enthusiastic response from the audience was another step in convincing Duke that he should hire Strayhorn. 

Duke wrote down his address in New York City and gave it to Billy. Then the Ellington band left on a road tour. Billy went back to Pittsburgh, and the drug store counter. A month passed. Billy wrote Duke but received no reply.

Bill Esch had to make a trip to New York, and suggested Billy come along with him. Before leaving Pittsburgh, Billy looked at Duke's directions to his home in Harlem, and composed the song "Take the "A" Train" based on Dukes written instructions. He intended the song to be a greeting gift for Duke.  

As they were preparing to leave for New York, Billy received a note form one of Duke's staff. He told Billy to meet up with the band in Philadelphia. He missed the band there, but caught up with it on its next stop in Newark, N.J. Billy went in through the stage door. He was taken to Duke, who was about to walk on stage for the next show. Ellington was standing in the wings.

"…He had about five or seven minutes before he went on, so we talked. Actually, he didn't say too much, and I didn't say too much. We were just kind of looking at each other. I was scared to death, and he wasn't, of course…Finally he said, "Well, it's really something that you arrived at this moment. Yes, because I just sent Jack Boyd (his manager) upstairs to look for your address and send for you.'"

"You don't have to, here I am." Strayhorn replied.

"I don't have any position for you", said Ellington, "You'll do whatever you feel like doing." (27)

Ellington called on his son Mercer to arrange for Billy to stay at the local YMCA. Duke would pay his $5.00 a day tab.

Billy went back to Pittsburgh to say goodbye to his friends and family, telling them about his new employer. He told his friend Ralph Koger that he was going to work for Duke, "I played that tune "'A' Train" for him, and he liked it." (28) 

Soon he was back in New York, but after only one night at the YMCA, Billy called Mercer and asked if he could come over to the seven-room Ellington apartment about a half mile away to learn more about Duke. Duke was out on tour at the time.

Ellington lived at 409 Edgecomb Ave. in the Sugar Hill district of Harlem. The building was atop a seven-story bluff overlooking the rest of the neighborhood and the Harlem River below. Duke lived with his sister Ruth, a biology student at Columbia, his lover Mildred Dixon, and son Mercer. Billy left the "Y" and walked over to the Ellington's 

After dinner they sat around comfortably talking and playing records. When it was time to go to sleep, everyone went to their rooms except Billy, who said he would just sleep on the couch. After that, Billy went back to the YMCA only to change clothes, and he finally just moved into Duke's apartment.

Mercer Ellington said, "My father didn't take me under his wing the way he did Strayhorn." (29)

Billy's first orders came on the night of February 26, 1939. Duke called him up and told him to arrange two songs for the next morning and have them ready by 10:00 am. Billy stayed up all night writing. Duke looked the manuscripts over, and changed nothing. He was very pleased with the work. After that initial hurdle, Billy did the arranging for all the small groups Duke recorded from within the orchestra. That May, Ellington let Strayhorn begin to play the piano during the last sets of his shows. 

Living in New York City for a year before he moved out of Ellington's apartment and into his own, Billy became accustomed to the sophisticated life of his Manhattan orbit. One of his friends, Haywood Williams, recalled "I'd pick up the phone and Billy would say, 'Allez-y!" That would be the signal, and we'd be off." (30) Billy would hire a limo and have a tray of martini's ready for his friends in the backseat as they rode around Central Park.

Charlie Barnet's arranger Ralph Burns remembers parties at Billy's own apartment: "Billy loved to play host and make sure everybody was eating. That's the kind of party he liked to have. It would be great, because a lot of us had so much in common- a lot of us were in the music business, and we were gay, of course- not that we would stand there and talk about being gay. That wasn't it. It was just really good to be in each other's company. Billy would put these parties together, and they were just a great, easy natural good time." (31) 

Herb Jeffries, the Ellington band's vocalist recalled: "We both spoke French, so we loved to go to the very Chicest French restaurants around New York. There was a tremendous amount of discrimination, and you could show a certain amount of sophistication by the mere fact that you could speak a language that the next white person couldn't." (32)

Dizzy Gillespie remembered seeing Strayhorn showing up at Minton's, the birthplace of Bebop,"Strayhorn was on the scene, and he played with the best of them. He never made a big deal out of it or looked for any attention. One night he and Bud Powell decided to cut, and man, I'm telling you, he turned that piano inside out." (33) 

Bill Paterson, married and a psychology student at NYU, was part of Billy's inner circle too. "Billy wasn't delicate or soft at all. He had an extraordinary presence. You got the distinct feeling that he was functioning from a place that's different from where the rest of us come from, and from that place within himself, he seemed to be able to see people in a different way than a lot of people get seen or most of us see people. He listened. He actually listened to you. He was always present. (34)

Billy's work for Duke was part of their easygoing relationship. Duke would casually say, "I want you to finish this thing for me." (35) In quick order, Strayhorn's own works, "Your Love Has Faded", "Day Dream", and "Something To Live For" had been rehearsed and recorded by the band, even though Ellington is credited as being a co-composer. 

One of the bizarre music industry interruptions that became quite common in the 1940's began in December of 1940. Radio stations refused to play ASCAP songs because of a hike in per-play prices. Broadcast Music Inc. was formed by the radio stations to compete with ASCAP. Ellington's entire "book" was ASCAP, so in order to be heard on radio, he needed to write a whole new "book".

Strayhorn and Mercer Ellington were asked to accomplish this task quickly. With a bottle of blackberry wine between them, and a couple of cartons of cigarettes, they began writing furiously. Mercer wrote "Jumpin' Pumpkins", and Billy wrote "After All", "Clementine", "Chelsea Bridge", "Johnny Come Lately", "Rain Check", "A Flower is a Lovesome Thing", and "Passion Flower". During this writing marathon, Mercer noticed a crumpled manuscript in the garbage can. It was Billy's arrangement of "Take The "A" Train". He had thrown it away thinking it sounded too much like Fletcher Henderson's formula. Mercer rescued it, and it was recorded in February of 1941 in Hollywood. It stayed on the charts for 7 weeks during that summer. 

Strayhorn's arrangement of the beautiful but forgotten Ted Grouya song "Flamingo" began what Ellington described as "The renaissance of vocal orchestration…before then, an orchestration for a singer was usually something pretty tepid, and it was just background- that's about all. But now, this had real ornamentation, fittingly done, supporting the singer and also embellishing the entire performance of both the singer and the band." (36) Again, Ralph Burns: "Billy took Big Band music and moved it up a couple of steps musically. He was really writing classical music for the Duke Ellington Orchestra." (37)

Claude Thornhill's young arranger, Gil Evans, remembers hearing "Chelsea Bridge" in the early 1940's, and later said, "From the moment I first heard 'Chelsea Bridge', I set out to try to do that. That's all I did- that's all I ever did- try to do what Billy Strayhorn did." (38)  

One of Glenn Miller's arrangers, Bill Finnegan thought, "It didn't take a thing away from Duke to recognize that Strayhorn, like Duke, was an original. There was so much all-around musical knowledge in those things he did, and always something original, the element of surprise." (39)

Some of Strayhorn's music reflects the experiences of his troubled life as a youth, Mickey Scrima recalled:

"The guy went through a lot of s--- in his life, from his father right on through school. The kids calling him a sissy…He kept it all in and put on a big front that everything was fine, nothing bothered him, then he sat down and wrote all that music with all that emotion. All his feelings came out in music. That's what made his stuff so incredible and different from Duke's." (40)

Billy was joined in the orchestra by Ben Webster on tenor  saxophone. Webster was Ellington's first full-time tenor saxophone player, and he played with a strength and precision that brought the Ellington band up to the level of Basie's aggregation, which featured Lester Young on tenor saxophone. 

A Strayhorn discovery, Jimmy Blanton, joined the band on bass. Blanton exploited the potential that the string bass held as no other bassist before him. Until Blanton, the instrument had been seen primarily as a "stringed tuba".

With all of the talent to support him, Ellington began to write with a renewed zest, penning "Cottontail", "Main Stem", "Ko-Ko" and "Harlem Air Shaft".  

Strayhorn, Blanton and Webster stuck together off the stand, too. They saw themselves as the "new guys" in the band. Piano player Jimmy Rowles, who in 1941 was studying at Spokane's Gonzaga University, remembers going to a small club in Seattle one night that spring, and seeing the trio of Blanton, Strayhorn and Webster play together after their Ellington band gig had ended someplace else in town. "I came into town to hear Ellington and went out that night, and in walked the three of them. It was amazing- the most beautiful trio I'd ever heard in my life. They had perfect taste. Every note was just right. And they could swing. I mean, they really swung." (41)

While writing and working on the Ellington musical show "Jump for Joy", which was inspired one evening at the Hollywood home of writer Sid Kuller, Billy met Lena Horne. Duke had actually assigned Billy to chaperon her, because he knew that Billy was "safe". They met at a theater to see the show, and spent the next several weeks together, doing the restaurant and nightclub scene together.  

"I had always been a lonely person until I met Billy. We went to museums; we went out at night to hear the blues. He was the one I wanted to be with all the time…I never met another man like him. He liked to stop and look at a tree…He was brilliant but gentle and loving. He never made you feel dumb. He was very sure of himself and decisive in his thinking…If I could have had him, I would have taken him. He was the only man I ever loved." (42)

Billy and Lena were having drinks at her apartment when the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor was announced on the radio. "Billy turned to me, and he said, 'It's all over.' We thought that was the end of the world." (43) 

Billy worked through the war with the Ellington band. He was classified 4-F for his myopic eyesight. Ellington wasn't drafted because he was already 42 years old. The band played its regular tunes and recorded often. It added free army base shows to its road tour.

Strayhorn worked on Ellington's first Broadway musical effort, an adaptation of "The Three Penny Opera", entitled "Beggar's Holiday". Although he almost single-handedly wrote the music, it was credited to Duke. The show only had a 16-week run at the Broadway Theater on West 53rd St. It closed in the last week of March 1947.  

Although Ellington occasionally referred to Strayhorn on stage as "Our writing and arranging companion", copyright issues concerning Strayhorn's work had become confused.

Billy met with writer Leonard Feather for some background instruction on how the music business operated. When Feather saw him a few weeks later he asked Billy if the primer had been useful, Billy replied: "Oh yes. Thank you very much. I've found the skeletons. They give their regards". (44) 

The fact was that Ellington had been supporting Billy since his arrival in New York. Duke had paid for his "rent and living expenses, his vast wardrobe, the finest food and drink, travel…" (45) No one could have asked for more. But Billy wanted his artistic freedom. He was so tied to Ellington he felt trapped.

He confronted Duke about the many Strayhorn compositions that Duke had been receiving the royalties for. Duke's publishing company, Tempo Music, set up during the ASCAP music ban, was the most delicate intertwining of their work. Clearly, Duke had taken the credit for composing "'C' Jam Blues", "The Mood to be Wooed", "Tonight I Shall Sleep", and the "Sugar Hill Penthouse" part of Duke's masterwork, "Black, Brown, and Beige". There were other compositions that blurred or crossed the true composer's ID. 

Duke knew first hand what it felt like, and didn't let it trouble him too much. It was widely known in the music business that Ellington himself had been ripped off by Irving Mills, the music publisher, on some of his most famous works, including, "In a Sentimental Mood", "Prelude to a Kiss", "Solitude", "Mood Indigo", and "Sophisticated Lady".

But nobody ever thought that Irving Mills was an actual composer- even though he took the credit. All of this unexpectedly bothered Strayhorn, however, for he was a composer.  

On His Own
 

On the opening night of "Beggar's Holiday", Billy Strayhorn attended the cast party. From a distance, he watched as Ellington soaked up the applause and attention for writing the score. Luther Henderson, a life-long friend of Duke's asked: "What credit could be given? Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn? Uh-uh. This was supposed to be a Duke Ellington show. 'Billy Strayhorn'- who was he?…You couldn't sell it." (46) 

Billy watched the adoration of Duke, then turned to the production's set designer, Oliver Smith, and said, "Let's get out of here." Smith replied "But the party's just starting."

"Not for me it isn't", said Strayhorn walking out into the night. (47)

For the first time, Billy became somewhat estranged from Ellington, and spent a lot of time with Lena Horne and her music-arranging husband Lennie Hayton on the West Coast.

Ellington called him in the Spring of 1950 to write the music for an Orson Welles musical of "Faust" in Paris. Welles lived up to his billing as one of the most difficult people to work with. He wrote lyrics to only one of several Strayhorn pieces, and they were awful. "It was terrible," said cast member Eartha Kitt. "The music might have been good. But nobody could tell. The whole show was a disaster. Incoherent." (48)

In 1953 Strayhorn worked completely independent of Duke on a new stage production of "Cabin In The Sky". While working with Herbert Machiz, who had also worked in Paris on the Welles fiasco, they began to discuss new directions for the theater in New York. Herbert wanted to "start a new kind of theater, bring together theater people and fine artists." (49) That same year, Machiz founded the Artists Theater. It turned out to be the forerunner of Off Broadway. 

Strayhorn worked on a production called "Don Perlimplin", which was a smash by the standards of Non-Broadway Theater of that time. Set designer Alfred Leslie:

"I'm not exaggerating, it was like he knew exactly what they needed to bring out the character and the scene. You know how you can't really sing, but one day, one day you sing in a certain time and place and all of a sudden you sound great? Just that one time in your life you sound fantastic? That's what Strayhorn did. He made everybody better." (50)

In the summer of 1954, Strayhorn teamed up with his formally trained friend Luther Henderson, and the two collaborated on a production that was to be entitled "Rose Colored Glasses". 

The two had fun working on the surreal plot that involved a character names Brother Big Eyes, a lense grinder in the "Land of "Ool-ya-coo". Brother roamed the land grinding glasses for people. A huge set of horn-rimmed glasses comprised the set.

One night Henderson and Strayhorn went out to hear Ram Ramirez, the pianist who composed "Lover Man". They were both drinking "Zombies", which contained over 6 ounces of alcohol per drink. After consuming five Zombies each, "We were feeling pretty fantastic," said Henderson. "One of us said to Ram, 'Hey Ram, Man, how about letting us do a number?" And he said, 'Sure'. You know, we were Billy Strayhorn and Luther Henderson…We sat down at the piano bench…we were inspired. We were way out- avant-garde- countermelodies, relative keys, two different tempos at the same time. It was genius…we finished the number with great flourish, and we stood up, and everybody in the place was just staring at us…the next morning Ram called me and he said "Man, don't you ever do that to me again! You guys almost got my ass fired! What the f--- did you think you were playing?" (51)

When he wasn't working on his own, Billy still wrote arrangements for Ellington, and collected royalties on re-issues of his Ellington records. His basic expenses were still covered by Ellington's organization. Duke Ellington also survived the decline of the big band era on money he made as a composer. 

Strayhorn and Henderson planned on starting a partnership, which, they thought, could possibly bring in between $300,000-500,000 a year (in early 1950's dollars). Billy told Duke about their plan. Duke called Henderson and told him he didn't need Strayhorn to make that kind of money. Henderson fell for it. No partnership ensued, and Duke kept Strayhorn. "We left all that undone," said Henderson." It was the biggest mistake of my life." (52)

In the summer of 1954, George Wein produced the first Newport Jazz Festival. He didn't ask Ellington to perform, thinking the band was past its prime, but he did give Duke a slot at the third festival, planned for 1956. 

At the same time, George Avakian, Columbia records new A&R account executive, began encouraging Duke to perform something special at the Newport Festival- something they could record capturing the excitement of the band at a live performance. Columbia paid the festival $25,000 to record Ellington in 1956.

Avakian asked Duke to write something like "The Newport Jazz Festival Suite" that could be used as a tie-in product. Duke agreed to put "Strays" to work on it. The final result failed to create much excitement at the festival. But after midnight, when Duke called for his piece "Diminuendo & Crescendo in Blue", a two-part number separated by what turned out to be a wild, extended saxophone solo by Paul Gonsalves, the orchestra bit into the music hard. While Gonsalves blew, Duke shouted encouragement and waved his arms, pushing him along.  

Later, Ellington recalled "Jo Jones was the driving force behind our big success at Newport in 1956…Out of sight of the audience, in the pit in front of the grandstand, slapping a backbeat with a newspaper, talking to us, he prodded us into a "Go, Baby!" drive that developed into the rhythmic groove of the century." (53)

Leonard Feather wrote that "…The whole of Freebody Park was transformed as if struck by a thunderbolt. Photographers rushed madly to the scene of each gathering knot of onlookers while Gonsalves, Duke and the whole band, inspired by the reaction they had started, put their all into the work…Hundreds of spectators climbed up on their chairs to see the action…"(54)  

Gonsalve's solo provided excitement that created a moment of transformation for both the festival and the band- and it was all caught on tape by Columbia's engineers. The record sold extremely well. Duke was put on the cover of Time Magazine.

In 1956, Ellington and Strayhorn had collaborated on a CBS television special entitled "A Drum is a Woman", designed to introduce the public to the new CBS color television system. Ellington had been chosen by Theater Guild attorney Lawrence Langer for the assignment. Duke chose to write "An allegorical history of jazz- a trip from Africa and the Caribbean through New Orleans to the Rocket Age". (55) 

Strayhorn recalled: "I suppose the largest hunk of collaboration was "Drum is a Women" in which we just kind of did everything. He wrote lyrics, I wrote lyrics. He wrote music, and I wrote music. He arranged, and I arranged." (56) 

At this time, Billy was also President of the gay black show business organization, "The Copasetics". Each year Billy would write a music program for the group to perform, and it provided him with "fraternal support"…a creative outlet removed from Ellington." (57)

Said Copasetic member Honi Coles: "Billy had a good time when he wrote for us. He was often quite inebriated." (58)

From the mid to late 1950's Billy also worked extensively with saxophonist Johnny Hodges. Hodges, although a drummer, pianist, and finally virtuoso soprano saxophonist, had little formal education and could barely sign his own name. "Everybody said Johnny was gruff. They thought he was cold. He was just afraid." said his wife Cue Hodges. (59)

Strayhorn and Hodges were worlds apart educationally, but much the same emotionally on the stand. They both emerged from their respective shells while playing and created entertaining records.

Ellington, meanwhile, was writing a condensed version of "Black, Brown and Beige" for recording, which would feature Mahalia Jackson. Duke would call Billy at the last possible moment to write him an arrangement and ship it airmail to Los Angeles from Florida.

"I was in Florida…working with Johnny Hodges. We were working at a hotel, so, of course, we were off at 2:00 in the morning…Ellington was recording (in California) at 2:00 in the afternoon…so I would go home and stay up until he was up and we would confer over the phone about what was to be recorded that day. I was writing things [such as a new arrangement of "Come Sunday"], and I had a cab driver down there who would take the score to the airport and mail it off…It ended up, of course, that I didn't hear anything that was recorded, even things I had written…I didn't hear them until a year later." (60) Billy was given no credit on the Jackson/Ellington record, released in 1958.

Strayhorn had always enjoyed his cocktails, but by the late 1950's his drinking was out of control. His society friend Marian Logan: "You had to see him…Half the time he would be so out of it that he literally couldn't speak. You had to put your ear right up to his mouth to hear what he was saying…He drank just constantly, in every imaginable situation. He wasn't looking for a reason to drink. It was beyond reasons. He just drank. (61)

The well-fed gourmet of previous years now called a friend and asked him to come by for breakfast. Billy said he had some bacon. He made a big deal out of the fact that he had bacon. More out of curiosity than hunger, the friend soon appeared at Strayhorn's apartment door. When he opened up Billy's refrigerator, there it was- a lone package of bacon on one shelf, and a bottle of gin on another. Nothing else.

In 1960 Irving Townsend of Columbia Records made plans with Duke and Billy about doing an Ellington take of Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker Suite". Billy had come up with the idea, and Duke approved. Billy set to work arranging a jazz version of the piece. As usual, there was a huge amount of bi-coastal telephony between Duke and Strays. "It was a struggle. It's always a struggle, you know, to present someone of the stature of Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky and adapting it to our flavor without distorting him. It entailed a lot of conversation. Long Distance calls back and forth between New York and California, and records, listening to the way that the originals were actually played…Tchaikovsky wasn't available. Actually it sort of felt like we were talking to him, because we didn't want him turning over any more than he already was."(62) 

In 1960, Strayhorn and Ellington teamed up on their second film score, "Paris Blues". Their first had been Otto Preminger's "Anatomy of a Murder" in 1959. American trombonist Billy Byers, who was living in Paris at the time, was hired as a translator for Ellington. But Duke didn't need one because everybody happily spoke in English for him.

Byers ended up spending most of his time with Strayhorn. "Duke worked all the time. He was a very organized man. Every day he got up and wrote for about four hours, no matter how late he had been up…Billy's role was this; he did what he could when he could. But he was always out getting drunk in the Mars Club…After working and living with him like that, so closely, my perception of Ellington and Strayhorn completely reversed. It turned upside down…I had always understood that Duke was a free, creative spirit and a bon vivant, and I had always pictured him with a bottle of champagne in one arm and a blonde in the other, gliding through the club car and saying to Stray, "I just got an inspiration:  DA DA DA-DA, DA DA [The opening melody of the lyric "missed the Saturday dance"]! Go and do something with it.' Nothing could have been further from the truth. It turned out that Strays was the indulgent artist and Ellington was the professional; Ellington worked like a dog, and Strayhorn was the playboy. He was drunk and hanging out all the time…Duke kept Strayhorn around knowing the output might be small and getting smaller, but wanting it all." (63)

Even though the first number heard in "Paris Blues" is "Take The "A" Train", Strayhorn is not mentioned in the films credits.

American record producer Alan Douglas asked Billy if he would be interested in a recording project of his own. Billy agreed casually, as if he had never thought about doing anything like it before. He chose to record songs that he had written in his first decade as a composer, using a bass accompaniment, (Michel Gaudry) a few abstract vocalists harmonizing, and a string quartet on some numbers. The result was a release entitled "The Peaceful Side of Billy Strayhorn".

In 1961, Creed Taylor brought Hodges and Strayhorn together for another session at Van Gelder studios for Verve. The band was primarily Ellington players. Several more recordings with Duke followed. One memorable 1963 session with South African singer Bea Benjamin was later recalled by violinist Svend Asmussen:

"Duke rarely bothered to go into the booth and listen to a take. After a number, he'd say, "Wonderful! Next number- What do we have? Bea darling, what do you want to sing?'

"In my Solitude,' she said. 'Marvelous,' he said. 'What key?' 'B-Natural,' she said. And then Duke said 'Uh-mmm…Mis-ter Stray-horn…that's where you take over." He would have no business playing in B-Natural. Billy would laugh and sit down and play anything in the world in any key, perfectly. One take. And Duke would say, 'Marvelous! Wonderful! What should we do next?" (64)

One cold morning in 1964, Billy's close friend and neighbor Dr. Arthur Logan (who was also Ellington's physician) noticed Strayhorn sitting on a chair at the top of the Logan's West 80's Brownstone steps. He was out of breath from climbing the stairs. Logan sent him in for a check up and it was determined that Billy had advanced esophageal cancer.

Undergoing treatment immediately, Billy attempted to keep up his usual work output. During the spring of 1964 much of this work was recorded that later became "Ellington '65" and "Ellington '66". Then, he stopped writing for a year, though he continued to arrange charts for Duke. During this period, the earlier co-written "Far East Suite" was recorded, based on the impressions of both Ellington and Strayhorn during their 1963 State Dept. tour through the Near and Middle East.

"The Intimacy of the Blues", and "Blood Count" were both written in early 1967. They would be his last contributions to the Ellington book. "Blood Count", written in D minor, is a troubling, lonely sounding composition, and "the trombones and trumpets alternately play a line of desolate descending major triads that keep falling back to a D Minor chord, suggesting there is no escape." (65)

Ellington and the orchestra left for Europe at the beginning of 1967, but Strayhorn was too sick to go along. Billy began writing his final piece of music, entitled "North by Southwest Suite". It was intended for the duo of Willie Ruff (French horn and Bass) and Dwike Mitchell (Piano). Strayhorn invited the duo over to his apartment, to make sure that his writing was correct for their respective playing styles and abilities.

Willie Ruff recalled their meeting and how Strayhorn interacted clearly: "What I've written here,"[Strayhorn] said to Mitchell, "is quite complete in the compositional sense. But I want this first meeting to feel to you like a fitting, as in 'fit' a custom-made suit. The compositional elements should fit your hands, which are so much larger and powerful than mine…You know how to make sections like these on this page as big and as rich in sonority as you can. But here in this interlude, let the horn ring through…Let Willie's sound kind of hover over it all right there. And pause here, but only slightly…Over in this middle part, your line and the horn line are of equal importance. Balance is the key word; but that's the kind of thing you two do naturally anyway. I have left you space and, at the same time, given indications of essential details…" By now Mitchell was alive with excitement. His large fingers trembled as he carefully shaped them to fit the powerful, two-fisted chords Stray had written to underscore the horn theme. And wham! Stray was up off the piano bench at the huge sound Mitchell made. He stomped the floor and beamed at Mitchell. "Hell yes!" he hollered. "That's what I had in mind; I just don't have the hands and strength to make it sound that way." (66)

On May 31, 1967, Billy Strayhorn died of cancer at age 51. Bill Grove, his companion, was at his side. The New York Times obituary, written by music critic John Wilson, referred to Strayhorn as "a small, stately man', who observed the world with 'benign amusement' through dark-rimmed glasses." (67)

A week after a memorial service at St. Peter's Church, Rev. John Gensel led a small group in prayer beside the Hudson River and then "turned and emptied Strayhorn's ashes into the air over the water, and a breeze lifted them away." (68)

Duke Ellington was devastated by the loss of his friend. His son Mercer once said, "He couldn't accept any kind of misfortune- that was one of the secrets of his success. He couldn't accept Strayhorn really wasn't there anymore." (69)

Ellington lived seven more years. His writing increased after Strayhorn's death. He composed a tribute to Strayhorn entitled "And His Mother Called Him Bill", and two more "Sacred Concerts". He also wrote the operatic "Queenie Pie", as well as the "Degas Suite", the "Afro-Eurasian Eclipse", and the "Goutelas Suite".

Duke Ellington died on May 24, 1974. In his autobiography, Ellington had written, "Billy Strayhorn was always the most unselfish, the most patient, and the most imperturbable, no matter how dark the day. I am indebted to him for so much of my courage since 1939. He was my listener, my most dependable appraiser, and as a critic he would be the most clinical, but his background--both classical and modern--was an accessory to his own good taste and understanding, so what came back to me was in perfect balance." (70)
 
 References

 (1) P.195 David Hajdu; "Lush Life, A Biography of Billy Strayhorn", 1996. Farrar Straus Giroux. New York. (2) ibid. PP.8-9 (3) P.9 (4) P.11 (5) PP.11-12 (6) P.12 (7) P.14 (8) P.15 (9) P.14 (10) P.19 Walter van de Leur; "Something to Live For: The Music of Billy Strayhorn, 2002. Oxford University Press, New York. (11) Hadju; P.17 (12) ibid. P.17 (13) P.18 (14) P.19 (15) P.24 (16) P.25 (17) van de Leur; P.19 (18) Hadju; P.30 (19) ibid. P.31 (20) P.33 (21) P.40 (22) PP.48-49 (23) P.49 (24) (Strayhorn, 1962); van de Leur P.23  (25) ibid.P.23 (26) ibid. P.23 (27) Hadju; P.57 (28) ibid. P.57 (29) ibid. P.59 (30) ibid. P.71 (31) ibid.P.73 (32) ibid. P.73 (33) ibid. P.74 (34) ibid.P.78 (35) ibid. P.52 (36) ibid. P.86 (37) ibid. P.87 (38) ibid. P.87 (39) ibid. P.87 (40) ibid. P.88 (41) ibid. P.90 (42) ibid. P.95 (43) ibid. P.99 (44) ibid. P.120 (45) ibid. P.122 (46) P.104 (47) P.105 (48) P.113 (49) P.125 (50) P.127 (51) PP.128-129 (52) P.142 (53) P.241 Duke Ellington; "Music is My Mistress", Da Capo Edition; Perseus Book Group. Reprint of 1973 Doubleday Ed. Garden City, N.Y. (54) P.263 James Lincoln Collier; "Duke Ellington", 1987. Oxford University Press. New York, Oxford. (55) Hadju; P.157 (56) ibid. P.158 (57) P.175 (58) P.176 (59) P.178 (60) PP.179-180 (61) P.197 (62) P.204 (63) P.210 (64) P.220 (65) van de Leur; P.171 (66) ibid. P.173 {Ruff 1991.1} (67) Hadju; P.255 (68) ibid. P.258 (69) P.259 (70) Ellington; P.156

 

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