Billy Strayhorn

Synopsis

At 4:45 am on today’s date in 1967, Billy Strayhorn died of cancer at the age of 51. The New York Times obituary described him as “a jazz composer, arranger, lyricist and pianist, who was often called Duke Ellington’s alter ego.” Ellington himself would call Strayhorn simply, “my favorite human being.”

Shortly after he had joined Duke Ellington’s band in 1939 as a lyricist and arranger, Strayhorn wrote a tune he called “Take the ‘A’ Train,” which quickly became the group’s signature theme—and one that many assumed had been written by Ellington himself. For the next three decades, Strayhorn would composed original pieces for the Ellington band and, in a kind of musical symbiosis, would work out musical ideas or even moods suggested by Ellington.

Strayhorn explained, “What it comes down to is this: Duke can call me and say ‘I’ve got these notes here and I haven’t got the time. I write it out from there… We really understand what each of us wants in a composition.”

During his lifetime, musicians in the know, starting with Elllington himself, realized the extent of his talent. Only recently, however, after the publication of David Hajdu’s biography “Lush Life” in 1996, has the full extent of Strayhorn’s work as a composer in his own right been clearly outlined.

Music Played in Today's Program

Billy Strayhorn (1915 - 1967) Take the "A" Train Billy Strayhorn, celeste; Duke Ellington, piano; ensemble Riverside 108

On This Day

Births

• 1656 - French composer and viola da gamba virtuoso, Marin Marais, in Paris;

• 1804 - French composer, pianist and teacher (Jeanne-) Louise Farrenc (née Dumont), in Paris;

Deaths

• 1809 - Austrian composer Franz Joseph Haydn, age 77, in Vienna;

• 1967 - American composer and arranger Billy Strayhorn, age 51, in New York City;

Premieres

• 1817 - Rossini: "La Gazza Ladra" (The Thieving Magpie"), at La Scala in Milan;

• 1884 - Puccini: opera "Le villi" (The Willies), in Milan at the Teatro dal Verme;

• 1961 - Penderecki: "Threnody in Memory of the Victims of Hiroshima" for strings, in Warsaw;

• 1998 - Melinda Wagner: Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion, at the State University of New York (SUNY) in Purchase, with flutist Paul Lustig Dunkel and the Westchester Philharmonic, Mark Mandarano conducting; This work won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1999.