Lush Life

A Biography of Billy Strayhorn

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by David Hajdu

Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, Inc

Due/Published June 1997, 320 pages, paper

ISBN 0865475123

Strayhorn was one of the most accomplished composers in the history of American music--Take the A Train was his. He worked for three decades as Duke Ellington's song writer and arranger under an agreement by which Ellington would protect Strayhorn, openly homosexual, from the "unaccepting." As a result, Strayhorn was overshadowed by Ellington who more often than not, took the bows for his work. Strayhorn gets his due from Hajdu who follows the jazz life from Harlem to Paris and back.