November 29: Billy Strayhorn and "Lush Life"

It was 93 years ago today, on November 29, 1915, that great American composer, songwriter, and Ellington collaborator Billy Strayhorn was born in Hillsborough North Carolina. Gay, black, and brilliant in a society intolerant of all three, Strayhorn grew up alienated and dejected, discovering peace and comfort in his grandmother's piano and Victrola records. As an adult, even the world of music betrayed him, as his race proved an insurmountable barrier to his success in the white world of classical music. His rescue came in the form of the innovative virtuosity of pianists like Art Tatum and Errol Garner, and in the joyful, liberating sounds of orchestras like Fletcher Henderson's famed ensemble. He was especially enchanted by the suave sophistication of Duke Ellington and his orchestra, and after speaking with Ellington and sharing with him some of his music, the famed bandleader feel under the spell of the gifted young composer. This proved the start of a decades-long collaboration that would produce some of the most innovative and enduring music of the era, including the tune that would become as close to theme as the Ellington orchestra ever had: Strayhorn's own "Take the A Train". Strayhorn's reserved, quiet calm was the antithesis of Ellington's flamboyant cool; Strayhorn was shy and intellectual, homosexual and a loner, while Ellington was social and boisterous, a lady's man whose personal and professional relationships defined his life. But the men found an eerily perfect connection in the music they both loved, and the two geniuses shared an intense emotional love fed by their shared creativity and shared passion. Said Ellington of Strayhorn, "[He is] my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brain waves are in his head, and his are in mine."

While still a teenager, and years before his tenure with Ellington, Strayhorn penned the heartbreaking ballad "Lush Life", a musically and lyrically sophisticated tune heartbreaking in its devastating honesty. Posted below is the John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman version of the tune, a beautiful recording and poignant tribute to one of America's great geniuses. (The picture shown in the clip is largely irrelevant.)



"I used to visit all the very gay places
Those come what may places
Where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life
To get the feel of life...
From jazz and cocktails.

The girls I knew had sad and sullen gray faces
With distant gay traces
That used to be there; you could see where they'd been washed away
By too many through the day...
Twelve o'clock tales.

Then you came along with your siren song
To tempt me to madness!
I thought for a while that your poignant smile was tinged with the sadness
Of a great love for me.

Ah yes! I was wrong...
Again, I was wrong.

Life is lonely again,
And only last year everything seemed so sure.
Now life is awful again,
A troughful of hearts could only be a bore.
A week in paris will ease the bite of it,
All I care is to smile in spite of it.

I'll forget you, I will
While yet you are still burning inside my brain.
Romance is mush,
Stifling those who strive.
I'll live a lush life in some small dive...
And there I'll be, while I rot
With the rest of those whose lives are lonely, too..

Romance is mush,
Stifling those who strive.
I'll live a lush life in some small dive...
And there I'll be, while I rot
With the rest of those whose lives are lonely, too.."