Nov. 17--Few cities have celebrated this year's Billy Strayhorn centennial more robustly than Chicago, which has honored the master composer with concerts, panel discussions, film screenings and more.
The festivities reach a climax this month, with Saturday night's performance of "Lush Life: The Music of Billy Strayhorn" at the Auditorium Theatre and the recent publication of an immensely appealing volume, "Strayhorn: An Illustrated Life" (well-timed for Strayhorn's birthday on Nov. 29).
Yet to call this a "coffee-table book," as the promotional material does, understates its value, the tome elegantly juxtaposing rarely seen historic photos of Strayhorn with an array of astute writings. That the words come from the likes of pianist Ramsey Lewis and authors David Hajdu and Walter van de Leur, among others, adds to the weight of the book, which treats its subject warmly and generously but not superficially or too modestly.
Practically every page rightly asserts Strayhorn's stature as a singular musical voice, not merely an alter ego to composer-bandleader Duke Ellington, as Strayhorn long has been portrayed. The book pulls no punches in chronicling how and why Strayhorn was overshadowed by the genius bandleader-composer who was his boss.
"When Ellington died in 1974, there were major movements to preserve and expand his legacy, particularly in the '90s," the book's introduction notes. "In the quest to mount a campaign making him the singularly most important composer of the 20th century, promotion practices diminished Strayhorn's role. Compact disc covers of reissued Ellington recordings that once bore Strayhorn's photo were redesigned to include only Ellington's. Strayhorn's name was in effect erased in the listing of credits for programs, and he was minimized in articles about Ellington."
Hajdu's "Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn" (1996), Van de Leur's "Something to Live For: The Music of Billy Strayhorn" (2002) and Robert Levi's documentary film "Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life" (2007) brought the composer's contributions into sharper focus than ever before. "Strayhorn: An Illustrated Life" builds on that effort.
As Hajdu succinctly puts it in the new book, "Billy Strayhorn may have been the best-known little-known figure in American culture. Although his name was not widely recognized during his lifetime, he was well known to countless musicians, dancers, actors, writers, painters, filmmakers, choreographers, civic leaders and political activists, as well as innumerable uncelebrated people whom he regarded with respect and affection."
To this day, Strayhorn masterpieces such as the searing ballad "Lush Life" and the big-city jazz anthem "Take the 'A' Train" are far more widely known than the man who wrote them, which is part of the reason the Strayhorn family championed this project. For if Hajdu's book offered a serious biographical portrait of the composer and Van de Leur dug deeply into the inner workings of Strayhorn's scores, the new volume tells the story in an approachable and accessible way, while respecting the integrity of Strayhorn's work.
"We thought that on the anniversary of Billy's birthday, it would be nice to have a book format, image driven ... that would be a very complete story in a form that everybody could read," says Chicagoan Alyce Claerbaut, Strayhorn's niece and president of Billy Strayhorn Songs Inc. "Because you don't have to be a scholar and know who he was" to understand the new book.
Van de Leur's commentary, Hajdu's interviews and essays by Bruce Mayhall Rastrelli and others tell Strayhorn's story in the context of his times, the book documenting the composer's civil rights activism and his refusal to deny his identity as a gay man in an era in which there was a high price to pay for it.
All of which can only heighten one's estimation of Strayhorn, as composer and man. Singer-actor Lena Horne, one of Strayhorn's closest friends, understood his art and his position in American life better than most.
"His music was sensuous, passionate beyond romance," Horne once told Hajdu, as quoted in the book. "The things he wrote were even about trees and flowers and beauty. I never knew a man like that."
But Strayhorn was distinctive in many ways, not only in the ultra-sophistication of his music and the self-liberated ways in which he lived his life. David Schlesinger, co-editor of the book with Claerbaut, was struck by something else about Strayhorn.
"He seems to be irrationally optimistic, given all the things he faced," says Schlesinger. "I think that sort of unceasing optimism was a surprise to me."
And yet there's an unmistakable sense of melancholy or loneliness in much of Strayhorn's work. As pianist Marian McPartland is quoted having said to Hajdu, Strayhorn's songs convey "a sadness that is so raw and true that it tells you more about Billy than you could learn from meeting him."
If the music tells the story of Strayhorn's inner life, the new book gives us a perspective from just outside, looking in.
Clearly this subject bears endless examination.
"Strayhorn: An Illustrated Life" (Agate Bolden) sells for $35. "Lush Life: The Music of Billy Strayhorn" plays at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress Parkway; $29-$68; 312-341-2300 or auditoriumtheatre.org.
Women in Jazz
The Music Institute of Chicago's annual jazz festival will spotlight Women in Jazz, with clarinetist Anat Cohen, 7:30 p.m. Thursday; singer Tammy McCann, 7:30 p.m. Friday; and singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, 7:30 p.m. Saturday; at Nichols Concert Hall, 1490 Chicago Ave., Evanston; $10-$30; musicinst.org or 847-905-1500, ext. 108.
hreich@tribpub.com
"Portraits in Jazz": Howard Reich's e-book collects his exclusive interviews with Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald and others, as well as profiles of early masters such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday. Get "Portraits in Jazz" at chicagotribune.com/ebooks.
