JAZZ : Strayhorn Still in Ellington’s Shadow

Somewhere tonight a band will play “Take the A Train,” and odds are most people in the room will think that Duke Ellington wrote the tune that was his famous theme.

Wrong.

The sole composer was Billy Strayhorn.

Somewhere else tonight, a vocalist will sing “Lush Life”--which Natalie Cole features on her hit album “Unforgettable” and Kenneth Branagh sings in the current movie “Dead Again”--and think the words are so convincing that they must be at least a touch autobiographical:

A week in Paris will ease the bite of it

All I care is to smile in spite of it . . .

Romance is mush, stifling those who strive

I’ll lead a lush life in some small dive .

Wrong again.

Both the intricate melody and the world-weary, Noel Coward-y words were written by Strayhorn when he was 16 and had never been closer to Paris than Pittsburgh, Pa., where he was working as a drugstore soda jerk.

In recent years, Strayhorn’s name and music--from “Lush Life” to “Satin Doll”--have been trumpeted in concert halls around the world. His songs have been featured on hundreds of albums by such artists as Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra.

But like so many great songwriters whose chief impact was made before the ‘50s rock revolution, Strayhorn is little known to today’s young record buyers. And his reputation is even more obscured by the fact that he has remained so deep in the shadow of the man who also discovered him: Ellington.

Strayhorn--who died at 52 in 1967--had only two jobs in his life: One was at that Pittsburgh drugstore, the other was with Ellington, whom he joined in 1939 as assistant arranger, co-composer and occasional pianist.

A small man at 5-foot-3 and 135 pounds, Strayhorn became the pre-eminent eminence grise of jazz, an intellectual who looked that part with his big horn-rimmed glasses.

Billy Strayhorn was born in Dayton, Ohio, was raised in Hillsborough, N.C., and Pittsburgh and was a precocious teen-ager who spoke fluent French, subscribed to the New Yorker and played Grieg’s A-Minor Concerto with the school orchestra for his graduation recital.

He was almost 20 before jazz captured his ear. The young writer heard the Ellington orchestra in concert and found the music as challenging as Stravinsky. Strayhorn went backstage to meet the maestro and played a few of his own songs--including “Lush Life”--for Duke at the piano.

Ellington asked for copies of the songs, but Strayhorn hadn’t yet written them down. He did, however, accept the bandleader’s offer to look him up if he ever came to New York. A month later, Strayhorn went to see Duke at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre. At first impressed mainly by his lyrics, Ellington now learned of the youngster’s gift for arranging and put him to work writing charts for small groups led by members of the band, such as reedman Barney Bigard.

Soon after, the full orchestra recorded Strayhorn’s “Something to Live For,” with the composer subbing for the leader at the piano. Within weeks, Strayhorn was a virtual part of the Ellington family, moving in with Duke’s son Mercer and sister Ruth.

What was the reason for Strayhorn’s success in capturing, even enhancing the flavor of Ellington?

It was due in part to his study of the way Ellington wrote arrangements to suit his band members’ styles. Strayhorn also brought to the orchestra a certain sophistication that he had acquired through many years of formal musical schooling--in contrast to Duke’s relatively casual musical education.

If at first Strayhorn was influenced by Duke, it was not long before the influence was mutual. There was an incredible affinity here; the ESP between these two remarkable men was so uncanny that even the band members could never discern where one left off and the other took over in a collaborative arrangement.

It was also significant that Strayhorn came to jazz with a classical background. His training was discernible in such orchestral works as “Chelsea Bridge,” which reflected a Ravel influence.

Along with this talent, Strayhorn was able to contribute simpler pieces in what might be called the Fletcher Henderson tradition, updated from the ‘20s and ‘30s in such upbeat swingers as “Midriff,” “Raincheck” and, of course, the classic song he wrote while riding the subway uptown from 59th Street to 125th Street.

The band recorded the song he named after that train--the A train--in February, 1941, and it proved so accessible and popular that Duke decided to use it as the band’s radio theme. Soon after, Glenn Miller, Cab Calloway and others recorded it.

“Strayhorn was a tremendous help,” Mercer Ellington recalls. “Pop was really stimulated by his presence. It worked both ways--Billy was inspired to show what he could contribute, while Pop, who wanted Billy to hear what he could do, started writing more himself.”

Because of his offhand attitude toward success, and his colorful lifestyle (he liked nothing better than to hang out until dawn with dear friends like Lena Horne, then show up at the last minute for a recording session), Strayhorn never sought out his own recording assignments.

There is only one album by Strayhorn himself currently available on CD--”Cue for Sax” on Verve/PolyGram Records.

In 1951, when Mercer Ellington and I were running the Mercer Records label, we lured him into the studio for two sessions with a group of Ellington sidemen, but the results came out on a 10-inch LP that soon became obsolete. Later we recorded eight Ellington-Strayhorn piano duets (they were dynamite at two keyboards but played together only for fun at parties); those too have become unavailable.

Strayhorn became ill with cancer in 1965, but even then his inspiration was undimmed. From the hospital he sent Duke his final tune, “Blood Count” (played poignantly at every Stan Getz concert in the saxophonist’s last years, when he knew that he would soon share Strayhorn’s fate).

“Blood Count,” today a standard tune, is included in a set of Strayhorn masterpieces recorded by the Ellington orchestra three months after the grieving maestro lost his soul mate of 28 years. The album, “And His Mother Called Him Bill,” is now on an RCA Bluebird CD and ranks among the most stunning of all Duke’s recordings.

In an accompanying eulogy, Ellington wrote: “He was a beautiful human being, adored by a wide range of friends. . . . He had no aspirations to enter into any kind of competition, yet the legacy he leaves, his oeuvre , will never be less than the ultimate on the highest plateau of culture (whether by comparison or not). God bless Billy Strayhorn.”