Research Catalog
Lush life : a biography of Billy Strayhorn
- Title
- Lush life : a biography of Billy Strayhorn / David Hajdu.
- Author
- Hajdu, David.
- Publication
- New York : North Point Press, 1997, c1996.
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Performing Arts Research Collections to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JNE 16-113 | Performing Arts Research Collections - Music |
Details
- Description
- xii, 307 pages : illustrations; 24 cm
- Summary
- 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..
- Subjects
- Genre/Form
- Biography.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-279), discography (pages 281-293) and index.
- Contents
- Something to live for -- Passion flower -- Overture to a jam session -- So this is love -- Beyond category -- I'm checkin' out, goom bye -- All roads lead back to you -- There was nobody lookin' -- Up and down, up and down -- Blood count.
- Call Number
- JNE 16-113
- ISBN
- 0865475121
- 9780865475120
- OCLC
- 70291887
- Author
- Hajdu, David.
- Title
- Lush life : a biography of Billy Strayhorn / David Hajdu.
- Imprint
- New York : North Point Press, 1997, c1996.
- Edition
- Paperback edition.
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-279), discography (pages 281-293) and index.
- Research Call Number
- JNE 16-113