William Thomas Strayhorn (November 29, 1915 – May 31, 1967) was an American jazz composer, pianist, lyricist, and arranger who collaborated with bandleader and composer Duke Ellington for nearly three decades. His compositions include "Take the 'A' Train", "Chelsea Bridge", "A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing", and "Lush Life".
Strayhorn was born in Dayton, Ohio, United States. His family then moved to the Homewood neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His mother's family came from Hillsborough, North Carolina, and she sent him there to protect him from his father's drunken rages. Strayhorn spent many months of his childhood at his grandparents' house in Hillsborough. In an interview, Strayhorn said that his grandmother was his primary influence during the first ten years of his life. He became interested in music while living with her, playing hymns on her piano and listening to records on her Victrola record player.
Return to Pittsburgh and meeting Ellington
Strayhorn returned to Pittsburgh while still in grade school. He worked odd jobs to earn enough money to buy his first piano and took lessons from Charlotte Enty Catlin. He attended Westinghouse High School, later also attended by jazz pianists Erroll Garner and Ahmad Jamal. He played in the school band, and studied under Carl McVicker, who had also instructed Erroll Garner and Mary Lou Williams. He studied classical music for a time at the Pittsburgh Music Institute, writing a musical, forming a trio that played daily on a local radio station, and writing/composing the songs "Life Is Lonely" (later renamed "Lush Life"), "My Little Brown Book", and "Something to Live For". By age 19, he was writing for a professional musical, Fantastic Rhythm.
Strayhorn's original ambition to become a classical composer was foiled by the harsh reality of a black man trying to make it in the classical world, which at that time was almost completely dominated by white people. Strayhorn was introduced to the music of pianists like Art Tatum and Teddy Wilson at age 19. The artistic influence of these musicians guided him into the realm of jazz, where he remained for the rest of his life. His first jazz exposure was in a combo called the Mad Hatters that played around Pittsburgh. Strayhorn's fellow students, guitarist Bill Esch and drummer Mickey Scrima, also influenced his transition to jazz, and he began writing arrangements for Buddy Malone's Pittsburgh dance band after 1937.
Strayhorn saw Duke Ellington play in Pittsburgh in 1933, then met him in December 1938 after Ellington performed there again. He first explained, and then showed the bandleader how he would have arranged one of Ellington's own pieces. Ellington was impressed enough to invite other band members to hear Strayhorn. As jazz historian and critic Ted Gioia notes, "The piece that caught Ellington's attention that night, 'Lush Life,' stands out as one of the greatest jazz ballads, with its yearning melody line and the haunting poetry of its lyrics, supported by sweeping harmonies more characteristic of classical music than of Tin Pan Alley." At the end of the visit, Ellington arranged for Strayhorn to meet him when the band returned to New York. Strayhorn worked for Ellington for the next 25 years as an arranger, composer, occasional pianist, and collaborator until his death from cancer. As Ellington described him, "Billy Strayhorn was my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brain waves in his head, and his in mine."
Strayhorn was a gifted composer and arranger who seemed to flourish in Ellington's shadow. Ellington was arguably a father figure and the band was affectionately protective of the diminutive and mild-mannered Strayhorn, nicknamed by the band "Strays", "Weely", and "Swee' Pea". Ellington used Strayhorn to complete his thoughts and introduce new musical ideas (and sometimes it worked the other way around), while giving him the freedom to write on his own and enjoy at least some credit. Although Ellington took credit for some of Strayhorn's work, he did not maliciously drown out his partner. Ellington would make jokes onstage like, "Strayhorn does a lot of the work, but I get to take the bows!" On the other hand, Ellington did not oppose his publicists' habit of frequently crediting him without any mention of Strayhorn, and, despite the latter's attempts to hide his dissatisfaction, "Strayhorn revealed", at least to his friends, "a deepening well of unease about his lack of public recognition as Ellington's prominence grew."
After joining the orchestra, Strayhorn began going through scores with Ellington, "really studying them", and "began to crack the code to the master's style or—as the young man would later dub it—the 'Ellington effect.'" Ellington's biographer John Edward Hasse notes,Strayhorn so mastered the Ellington style of composing that the two became uncannily close musical collaborators, yet in their personal lives they were opposites. While the handsome, six-foot-one-inch Ellington moved through life with dash and theatricality, a charismatic and imposing presence wherever he went, both charming and manipulating people, bedding many women along the way, the cherubic Strayhorn was short (five feet, three inches tall), shy, soft-spoken, bespectacled, modest, and homosexual. Despite their different personalities, they formed an exceedingly close musical and working relationship that would end only with Strayhorn's death.
Strayhorn became part of the Ellington organization just before it hit what many regard as its peak years in 1940 and 1941, after Ellington also hired two other crucial members: the bassist Jimmy Blanton, who despite his short life revolutionized jazz playing on his instrument, and the great tenor saxophonist Ben Webster. As Strayhorn biographer David Hajdu puts it, "With the Blanton–Webster band under him and Strayhorn submitting ambitious work, a freshly challenged Ellington reached a watershed of his own. The compositions he was recording in the early 1940s ... mark an invigorated master working at his resolute best." In his History of Jazz, Ted Gioia observes, "The Ellington recorded legacy from the beginning of the 1940s is extraordinarily rich. The Victor sides from this period rank with the finest achievements of the jazz idiom." The three new members of the band bonded, becoming close friends and sometimes playing together as a trio.
During this period, Strayhorn composed the Duke Ellington Orchestra's famous signature song, "Take the 'A' Train" (first recorded in 1941), and a number of other pieces that became an integral part of the band's repertoire. In some cases, Strayhorn received full attribution for his work, such as "Raincheck" (1941), "Chelsea Bridge" (1941), "A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing" (1941), "After All" (1942), "Johnny Come Lately" (1942), "My Little Brown Book" (1944), "Passion Flower" (1944), and "Lotus Blossom" (1946), whereas other pieces of his, such as "Something to Live For" (1939), "Grievin'" (1939), "Day Dream" (1940), and "Just A-Sittin' and A-Rockin" (1941), were listed as collaborations with Ellington. Strayhorn also composed but was not credited for the "Sugar Hill Penthouse" section of Ellington's lengthy work Black, Brown and Beige (1943). Strayhorn arranged many of Ellington's band-within-a-band recordings and, with his extensive background in classical music, provided harmonic clarity and polish to Duke's compositions. In addition, Strayhorn often played the piano with the Ellington orchestra, both live and in the studio, particularly on recordings of his own works like "Raincheck" and "Chelsea Bridge".
As a pianist, Strayhorn had a formidable reputation among his colleagues. In the 1940s, he engaged in a cutting competition with Bud Powell, and Dizzy Gillespie, who witnessed the contest, said of Strayhorn, "[M]an, I'm telling you, he turned that piano inside out." Max Roach added that on another occasion at Minton's Playhouse, various pianists were taking turns playing for the audience, but after Strayhorn played, "nobody would go to the piano after him. He was that good."