Hajdu, taking his title from one of Strayhorn's youthful works, deftly chronicles the life of the gifted composer, arranger and pianist about whom little has been known until now. Strayhorn (1915-1967), often called Duke Ellington's alter ego, collaborated with the legendary bandleader for more than 25 years, yet remained in his shadow; few outside the music world realized he composed and wrote the lyrics for "Take the `A' Train" and many other pieces often attributed to Ellington. Drawing on interviews with Strayhorn's friends, family and fellow musicians, Hajdu, an editor at Entertainment Weekly, brings his subject out of obscurity, showing him to be a complex, shy, charming genius whose extraordinary talents were recognized mainly by other musicians and members of an elite circle of black performers, artists and writers who adored him. The extent to which Ellington deliberately kept him in the background is unclear, but Strayhorn seems to have preferred this arrangement; without the need to pursue a career on his own, he could be open about his homosexuality at a time when most gay men kept their sexual orientation secret. He died tragically of cancer of the esophagus at 52. Photos not seen by PW. (June)
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Much of the music associated with the Duke Ellington Orchestra was the work of composer and arranger Billy Strayhorn. He composed "Lush Life," "Take the A Train," and "Chelsea Bridge" and collaborated on Ellington's suites and music for stage and film (including "Such Sweet Thunder," "Jump for Joy," and "Anatomy of a Murder"). In return, Ellington provided Strayhorn a virtually all-expenses-paid life. With his male companions, Strayhorn lived in grand style, traveling in exclusive artistic and social circles. Hajdu's first book, this is a well-researched and well-written account of an underappreciated voice in American popular music. Lush Life should appeal to jazz enthusiasts in general and Duke Ellington fans in particular.-Paul Baker, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison
Lush Life is a book as beautiful and intelligent as its subject. David Hajdu has brought all my dear memories of Billy Strayhorn to life.
A portrait that is both full and convincing... It is a mark of excellence of this biography that it leaves one wanting nothing so much as to listen to the music. — The Washington Post Book World
Hajdu invests his biography of Strayhorn with the kind of sensitivity and clarity which is the mark of his subject's best work.
The creative lives of Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington became inextricably linked in 1938, when the two met in Ellington's dressing room after a performance. Duke was getting his hair conked as Strayhorn, a gay pianist and composer of prodigious talent, was introduced. Ellington invited the young man to sit down at the keyboard. David Hajdu brings this scene alive in Lush Life , his absorbing new biography of Strayhorn. "Strayhorn lowered himself onto the bench with calibrated grace and turned toward Ellington, who was lying still. 'Mr. Ellington, this is the way you played this number in the show,' Strayhorn announced, before masterfully replicating Ellington's performance of 'Sophisticated Lady.' 'Now this is the way I would play it,' Strayhorn said, changing keys and upping the tempo slightly."
Ellington hired Strayhorn on the spot, specifying neither the nature of the job nor the compensation. A couple of weeks later, wanting to impress his new boss, Strayhorn wrote "Take the A Train," based on Duke's subway directions to his Harlem home. "A Train" soon become the signature song of the Ellington band, and Strayhorn spent the remaining 30 years of his life working with Ellington and writing a gorgeous body of music as haunting and intimate as any in the 20th century. Yet, while revered as a genius by musicians, Strayhorn has remained largely unknown to the general public.
Hajdu's biography tries to discover the reasons for Strayhorn's cultural invisibility. How much of the music associated with the Ellington band was actually composed by Strayhorn and credited to Duke? How did Strayhorn's out-of-the-closet homosexuality affect his public standing? To Hajdu's credit, he doesn't deliver simple answers but revels in the contradictions. Strayhorn could not only play like Ellington, he could write like him. The close collaboration between the two composers, Hajdu shows us, makes it difficult to determine who wrote what. Strayhorn and Ellington may each have gotten what they needed, given their natures. The great bandleader, pianist, composer and showman won most of the glory, but he was out working 350 nights a year. Although a private man most comfortable in the society of close friends who accepted his homosexuality, Strayhorn was a bon vivant who spent more time drinking than composing. Happily, the exquisite music that he wrote in the age of Ellington is enjoying a renaissance that will certainly be fed by this fine biography.
-- Bart Schneider
Hajdu (an editor at Entertainment Weekly) has found a perfect subject in Strayhorn, a little-studied figure central to jazz history, the composer of such famous Ellington-band pieces as "Chelsea Bridge," "Lush Life," and "Take the A Train."
"Strays" (also known as "Swee' Pea"), born in 1915, grew up working-class in Pittsburgh and had high-society aspirations from the start: He wrote an entire Gershwin-like musical revue a year out of high school, full of sophisticated recitative and advanced harmony. He yearned for a career in concert music. But, as Hajdu points out, he was a "triple minority": black, gay, and unwilling to hide his homosexuality. His break came in 1938, when he met Duke Ellington; possessed of both a supernal cool and a tenacious business sense, Ellington knew Strayhorn was gifted and worked out a deal. Hajdu meticulously recreates this unusual agreement: Ellington gave Strayhorn free rein to let his Ellington- influenced composistional sense run wild, but he gave Strays no by-line (and, as Strayhorn would find out, no publishing royalties). At first, Strayhorn submitted to Ellington's benevolent dictatorship. Eventually, though, his compositions moved beyond Ellington's influence; as he grew increasingly depressed by his obscurity, he transcended the ghost-writing arrangement to achieve his own, dark style and a small measure of fame. As one of his friends told Hajdu, both Ellington's and Strayhorn's music was great, the difference was that Strayhorn's "was so full of feeling."
This is jazz history as it has seldom been written before, covering both Strayhorn's powerful music and difficult life as well as the hidden history of New York's black and gay artists from the 1930s until Strayhorn's death in 1967. Hajdu gets deeply felt and non-mythologizing input from important members of Strayhorn's protective circle, including ex-lovers and close friends (Lena Horne's reminiscences are extraordinarily moving). A good idea done right.
