Billy Strayhorn
Wikimp3 information about the music of Billy Strayhorn. On our website we have 23 albums and 26 collections of artist Billy Strayhorn. You can find useful information and download songs of this artist. We also know that Billy Strayhorn represents Jazz genres.
Biography
[Edit]An extravagantly gifted composer, arranger, and pianist — some considered him a genius — Billy Strayhorn toiled throughout most of his maturity in the gaudy shadow of his employer, collaborator, and friend, Duke Ellington. Only in the last decade has Strayhorn's profile been lifted to a level approaching that of Ellington, where diligent searching of the Strayhorn archives (mainly by David Hajdu, author of the excellent Strayhorn bio Lush Life) revealed that Strayhorn's contribution to the Ellington legacy was far more extensive and complex than once thought. There are several instances where Strayhorn compositions were registered as Ellington/Strayhorn pieces ("Day Dream," "Something to Live For"), where collaborations between the two were listed only under Ellington's name ("Satin Doll," "Sugar Hill Penthouse," "C-Jam Blues"), where Strayhorn pieces were copyrighted under Ellington's name or no name at all. Even tunes that were listed as Strayhorn's alone have suffered; the proverbial man on the street is likely to tell you that "Take the 'A' Train" — perhaps Strayhorn's most famous tune — is a Duke Ellington song.
Still, among musicians and jazz fans, Strayhorn is renowned for acknowledged classics like "Lotus Blossom," "Lush Life," "Rain Check," "A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing," and "Mid-Riff." While tailored for the Ellington idiom, Strayhorn's pieces often have their own bittersweet flavor, and his larger works have coherent, classically influenced designs quite apart from those of Ellington. Strayhorn was alternately content with and frustrated by his second-fiddle status, and he was also one of the few openly gay figures in jazz, which probably added more stress to his life.
Classical music was Strayhorn's first and life-long musical love. He started out as a child prodigy, gravitating toward Victrolas as a child, and working odd jobs in order to buy a used upright piano while in grade school. He studied harmony and piano in high school, writing the music for a professional musical, Fantastic Rhythm, at 19. But the realities of a black man trying to make it in the then-lily-white classical world, plus exposure to pianists like Art Tatum and Teddy Wilson, led Strayhorn toward jazz. He gigged around Pittsburgh with a combo called the Mad Hatters. Through a friend of a friend, Strayhorn gained an introduction to Duke Ellington when the latter's band stopped in Pittsburgh in 1938. After hearing Strayhorn play, Ellington immediately gave him an assignment, and in January 1939, Strayhorn moved to New York to join Ellington as an arranger, composer, occasional pianist, and collaborator without so much as any kind of contract or verbal agreement. "I don't have any position for you," Ellington allegedly said. "You'll do whatever you feel like doing."
A 1940-1941 dispute with ASCAP that kept Ellington's compositions off the radio gave Strayhorn his big chance to contribute several tunes to the Ellington band book, among them "After All," "Chelsea Bridge," "Johnny Come Lately," and "Passion Flower." Over the years, Strayhorn would collaborate (and be given credit) with Ellington in many of his large-scale suites, like "Such Sweet Thunder," "A Drum Is a Woman," "The Perfume Suite," and "The Far East Suite," as well as musicals like Jump for Joy and Saturday Laughter, and the score for the film Anatomy of a Murder. Beginning in the '50s, Strayhorn also took on some projects of his own away from Ellington, including a few solo albums, revues for a New York society called the Copasetics, theater collaborations with Luther Henderson, and songs for his friend Lena Horne. In 1964, Strayhorn was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus, aggravated by years of smoking and drinking, and he submitted his last composition, "Blood Count," to the Ellington band while in the hospital. Shortly after Strayhorn's death in May 1967, Ellington recorded one of his finest albums and the best introduction to Strayhorn's work, And His Mother Called Him Bill (RCA), in memory of his friend. ~ Richard S. Ginell, Rovi
Title: Juice A-Plenty. Billy Strayhorn & Johnny Hodges
Artist: Johnny Hodges, Billy Strayhorn
Genre: Jazz
Title: Rarities
Artist: Lester Young, Nat King Cole, Buddy Rich, Billy Strayhorn
Genre: Jazz, Pop, Easy Listening
Title: Rare Strayhorn - Billy Strayhorn With Duke Ellington 1941-1965
Artist: Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington
Genre: Jazz, World Music
Title: Great American Songwriters Vol. 5
Artist: Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington
Title: Jazz From America On Disques Vogue (CD01)
Artist: Serge Chaloff, Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn
Genre: Jazz
Title: The Peaceful Side of Jazz (feat. The Paris String Quartet & Michel Goudray)
Artist: Billy Strayhorn
Genre: Jazz
Collections
Title: That Devilin' Tune: A Jazz History (1895-1950)
Genre: Jazz
Title: The Most Influential Jazz Pianists
Genre: Jazz
Title: All Time Greatest Jazz Hits
Genre: Jazz
Title: Happy Birthday Newport: 50 Swinging Years! (Live)
Genre: Jazz
Title: All Star Sessions
Genre: Jazz
Title: The Greatest Jazz Standards
Genre: Jazz
Title: Best Of The Piano
Genre: Jazz
Title: Jazz & Blues Piano Classics
Genre: Jazz
Title: Coffee House Jazz
Genre: Theatre/Soundtrack
Title: Jazz Night
Genre: Jazz
Title: The Classics Saxofone
Genre: Jazz
Title: The Complete Felsted Mainstream Collection
Genre: Jazz
Title: L.A. Jazz Noire - Hip Cats & Their Combos
Genre: World Music
Title: Jazz for Readers, Vol. 1
Genre: Jazz
Title: An Introduction to the Best of Jazz
Genre: Jazz
Title: Sunday Jazz - Verve 50
Genre: Jazz, Vocal Jazz, Smooth Jazz
Title: Greatest Men Of Jazz
Genre: Jazz, Smooth Jazz
Title: Jazz Legends - Piano (CD1)
Genre: Jazz
Title: Introducing M-Base
Genre: Contemporary Jazz, Classical
Title: Verve 60 (CD2)
Genre: Jazz, Vocal Jazz
Title: Blues Saxaphone 3CD (CD2)
Featuring albums
Title: Lena Horne Greatest Hits
Artist: Lena Horne
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Jazz, Vocal Jazz, Pop, Theatre/Soundtrack
Title: The Complete RCA Victor Mid-Forties Recordings (1944-1946)
Artist: Duke Ellington
Genre: Jazz
Title: The Best of the Complete RCA Victor Mid-Forties Recordings (1944-1946)
Artist: Duke Ellington
Genre: Jazz