Something to Live For: The Music of Billy Strayhorn

by Walter van de Leur

Overview

Duke Ellington was one of jazz's greatest figures, a composer and bandleader of unparalleled importance and influence. But little attention has been given to his chief musical collaborator, Billy Strayhorn, who created hundreds of compositions and arrangements for his musical partner, and without whom the sound of Ellington's orchestra would have been very different.
Now, in Walter van de Leur's provocative new book, Something To Live For, Billy Strayhorn steps out from Ellington's shadow and into the spotlight. Van de Leur argues that far from being merely a follower of Ellington or his alter ego, Strayhorn brought a radically new and visionary way of writing to the Ellington orchestra. Making extensive use, for the first time, of over 3,000 autograph scores, Van de Leur separates Strayhorn from Ellington, establishes who wrote what, and clearly distinguishes between their distinctive musical styles. "Both Strayhorn's and Ellington's oeuvres," writes Van de Leur, "though historically intertwined, nevertheless form coherent, separate musical entities, especially in terms of harmonic, melodic, and structural design." Indeed, Something to Live For allows us to see the characteristic features of Strayhorn's compositions and arrangements, his "musical fingerprints," and to analyze and evaluate his music on its own terms. The book also makes clear that Strayhorn's contribution to the band was much larger, and more original, than has been previously acknowledged.
Based on a decade of research and offering detailed analyses of over 70 musical examples, Something to Live For casts new light—and will surely arouse intense debate—on two of the most important composers in the history of jazz.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195124484
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/31/2002
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	9.66(w) x 6.51(h) x 1.18(d)

About the Author

Walter van de Leur was the founder and editor of Billy Strayhorn Manuscript Editions. An independent jazz researcher, he currently works for the Amsterdam Conservatory and the Dutch Jazz Archives, and is the artistic co-leader of the Dutch Jazz Orchestra.

Editorial Reviews

"An epochal work—groundbreaking, fearless, sensitive, and exquisitely modulated, much like the music it illuminates. Something to Live For is the best possible book about Billy Strayhorn's art and a highwater mark of music scholarship."—David Hajdu, author of Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn

"The celebration of Billy Strayhorn's life and legacy continues with Walter van de Leur's magnificent new book. Something to Live For immediately takes its place as an absolutely indispensable addition to the history of the Ellington orchestra and American music in general."—Ellingtonia

"Richly provocative.... There is a real intellectual hunger in this exploration to identify the unique glory and lasting contribution Strayhorn made to the art of jazz.... Jazz musician and historian Van de Leur subjects Billy Strayhorn's musical arrangements to deep scrutiny and credibly finds them original, undervalued, frequently misattributed, and tasting of the sublime."—Kirkus Review

"In this exemplary work, combining meticulous, dedicated research and brilliant analytic illumination, Van de Leur has brought Strayhorn, the musician, and his legacy into full and unobstructed view at last, thus deepening our understanding of Ellingtonia. Indispensable!"—Dan Morgenstern, Director, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University

"For lovers of Ellingtonia, jazz, and twentieth-century music, Walter van de Leur's new book is indeed Something to Live For. The first in-depth study of the music of composer-arranger Billy Strayhorn, this volume is meticulously researched, clearly written, and enriched with excerpts from Strayhorn's autograph scores. For the first time, we can learn the details of Strayhorn's monumental 28-year contribution to the Duke Ellington Orchestra and music he wrote for other contexts. Something to Live For: The Music of Billy Strayhorn sets a new standard of excellence for jazz musicology."—Bill Kirchner, Composer-arranger, saxophonist, jazz historian, producer, educator, and editor of The Oxford Companion to Jazz

From the Publisher

Those with a basic knowledge of jazz history know the story of Billy Strayhorn: he was Duke Ellington's humble sidekick, a brilliant composer who stood in the famous band leader's shadow for 30 years and whose real contribution to the musical form was not recognized until years after his death in 1967. And while Strayhorn's life was justly chronicled in David Hajdu's 1996 biography Lush Life, this study of the composer takes a closer look at the musician's work. Van de Leur posits that Strayhorn was not merely Ellington's alter ego but a distinctly different composer who had a direct influence on Ellington's music, changing the way it and, in turn, jazz in general was received by both critics and the general public. Weeding through over 3,000 pieces of original scores, van de Leur, an independent jazz researcher and artistic co-leader of the Dutch Jazz Orchestra, clearly delineates which elements in songs like Take the "A" Train and I Got It Bad were Ellington's and which were Strayhorn's. According to van de Leur, the two shared some qualities: an attraction to orchestral sonority, harmonic richness and formal balance. But Strayhorn's compositions were more complex, featuring intricate choruses and detailed chromaticisms. Van de Leur academically addresses the Billy Strayhorn debate (was he an independent composer or a mere apprentice and assistant?), stretching his dissection of songs over more than 10 chapters. Though by no means an expos meant to decry Ellington, nor a close look at Strayhorn himself, this scholarly evaluation of Strayhorn's compositions still manages to pay homage to the visionary force behind some of the 20th century's greatest music. Illus. (Jan.) Copyright 2001Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Duke Ellington's place in jazz is secure, yet until now critics have failed to consider adequately the contributions of his principal collaborator, the richly talented composer and arranger Billy Strayhorn. Dutch jazz researcher van de Leur uses several recently established manuscript collections, including the Smithsonian Institution's Duke Ellington Collection at the National Museum of American History and autograph collections of both Ellington and Strayhorn scores, to show that Strayhorn's critical sensibilities shaped the Ellington orchestra much more than had been thought. Included here are highly technical analyses of some 70 extracts from the original scores, demonstrating clearly the differences in the musical styles of these two immensely talented men. Earlier efforts to separate Strayhorn from Ellington (whom van de Leur refers to as "twins") were thwarted by the necessity of relying on transcriptions, which by their nature are often flawed because of the transcribers' inability to identify all of the notes making up individual chords. Although general readers will find parts of the book impenetrably abstruse, the findings themselves are presented in plain English, and there is much here to engage the interest of casual jazz listeners. Even defensive Ellingtonians will appreciate the author's balanced angle: so extraordinary were Ellington's talents that it was even more extraordinary that he found a partner. Essential for all jazz collections. Harold V. Cordry, Baldwin, KS Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Jazz musician and historian van de Leur subjects Billy Strayhorn's musical arrangements to deep scrutiny and credibly finds them original, undervalued, frequently misattributed, and tasting of the sublime. There isn't much music in van de Leur's prose, but there is a real intellectual hunger in this exploration to identify the unique glory and lasting contribution Strayhorn (1915-67) made to the art of jazz and to give credit to Strayhorn where credit is due. Readers unaccustomed to the patter of musical composition-"characterized by an ascending B[sharp] Aeolian minor scale that surprisingly leads to the major seventh, underscrored by a third inversion B[sharp]mi6"-will find themselves briskly and repeatedly treading water, but van de Leur is equally capable of conveying Strayhorn's magic in less idiosyncratic language. The main concern here is to situate Strayhorn as he relates to Duke Ellington, with whom he worked for most of his professional life and by whom van de Leur feels Strayhorn is overshadowed. While the author wouldn't deny the enormous influence Ellington had on the younger Strayhorn, nor their shared "fascination for orchestral sonority, harmonic richness, and formal balance," he can find evidence of original Strayhorn fingerprints all over the work Ellington and his band played. They're in his "temporary modulations," his specific dissonance, choral choices, rhythmic figures. It might well be that Strayhorn and Ellington worked so well together because they were complementary: Strayhorn the tight-knit, Ellington the streetwise and striding. Along the way, van de Leur sticks it to a whole company of critics he feels have given Strayhorn a bum rap, perhaps because ofhomophobia, perhaps because they simply never appreciated the breadth of jazz that Strayhorn pioneered, such as subdued bebop. A dense and closely argued piece of work. Since van de Leur often proceeds by feel-many original scores are lost-his attributions will doubtless be richly provocative to jazz fans. (Inventory of scores, compositions, and works on record)

Kirkus Reviews