Read more
Something to Live For investigates and analyses the entire oeuvre of Billy Strayhorn,m who, for over 30 years, was the musical collaborator of Duke Ellington. Nearlly seventy music examples, drawn directly from his original autograph scores, provide insight into the development of Strayhorn's own musical language and style. The author has found hitherto unknown works that permit a closer examination of the composer's development. The author addresses the question of the perceived interchangeability of Strayhorn's and Ellington's styles and argues for each having a unique style. With this work, Strayhorn is detached from Ellington's shadow and readers are given pointers to the most salient features to distinguish their works.
List of contents
- 1: Fantastic Rhythm: The Pittsburgh Years
- 2: The Renaissance of Arranging: First Works for and with Duke Ellington
- 3: The Strayhorn Effect: A New Way of Writing for Jazz Orchestra
- 4: Thinking with the Ear: Strayhorn's Musical Fingerprints
- 5: Writing and Arranging Companions: Credited and Uncredited Collaborations
- 6: "He is He and I am Me": The Ellington-Strayhorn Collaboration
- 7: Wounded Love: Away from the Ellington Organization
- 8: Masterpieces by STrayhorn: Writing for Albums
- 9: The Whodunnit Game: The Mature Style of Billy Strayhorn
- 10: North by Southwest: The Final Years
- 11: Conclusion
- Appendix A: Score of Scores: Manuscripts at the Duke Ellinton and Billy Strayhorn Collections
- Appendix B: Billy Strayhorn's Works on Record
- Appendix C: Billy Strayhorn's Works on Record (posthumously premiered)
- Appendix D: The Compositions of Billy Strayhorn
About the author
Walter van de Leur is the artistic co-leader of the Dutch Jazz Orchestra, in Hilversum, The Netherlands; a coordinator at the Dutch Jazz Archive in Amsterdam; he is also the founder editor of Billy Strayhorn Manuscript Editions (BSME) in Pittsburgh.
Summary
'Something to Live For' investigates and analyses the entire oeuvre of Billy Strayhorn, who, for over 30 years, was the musical collaborator of Duke Ellington. Nearly 70 music examples, drawn directly from his original autograph scores, provide insight into the development of Strayhorn's own musical language and style.
