Yves
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Great idea!
In recent years, some openly gay jazz musicians as Fred Hersch, Andy Bey or Gary Burton have recognized the difficulties of being an openly gay musician in an environment that is not necessarily gay friendly. Billy Strayhorn -composer, arranger and pianist- lived his life as a gay African-American musician in the open during a time when it was both difficult and dangerous to do so. He faced racial and gender discrimination, alcoholism and cancer and got involved with the civil rights movement. He wrote his last piece ("Blood Count") while dying from cancer of the esophagus while in the hospital.
Things were not easy for Strayhorn, for some he was just Ellington´s second fiddle or a minor figure. Only in recent years his life and musical contribution has been acknowledged. A couple of biographies are now available ("Lush Life") plus a few TV documentaries (Kern Burns´Jazz series on PBS is an example. See excerpt below)
Strayhorn's relationship with Ellington was always difficult to pin down. Recent documentaries and interviews have provided some light into this relationship. Attached is an excerpt from an interview to Duke´s grandaugther Mercedes Ellington:
"I think there were maybe two people that Duke Ellington valued above all others. And in reality I believe that one of them was his mother and the other one was Billy Strayhorn.
(....)
I remember him by a smell. He would always chew these violet scented Sen Sen I think it was called. So I remember Billy as violets. And I remember his voice. And I remember that he was one of the few people that I could almost communicate with eye to eye because of his height, you know we were. . .
What was his relationship with your grandfather?
It was very private. I think the two of them, only the two of them, I think that only the two of them knew what their relationship was like. People now are trying to interpret it. I don’t think they can. I don’t really think honestly can, because up to the point of meeting Billy Strayhorn I think that my grandfather was a very lonely person. On the musical level. There was no one he could communicate to on that level. And if you can imagine, what if Mozart had somebody like that? It was, it would be such an opening. It would be such a joy to be able to not necessarily say something but just write a note and have somebody else write a note and you write a note and then its all the same thing, you know, its like communicating with just feelings, with just music, with just music. They communicated through music.
Did they love each other?
I think they did. I think they had to. They had to for because if you look at the product you must know that they loved each other. They had to work under many different circumstances probably, many stressful circumstances but basically, I think, the joy of them finding each other was the core of their mutual creativity. They brought out the best in each other. They had many things."
Source: www.pbs.org/jazz/about/pdfs/Ellington.pdf
Some of his pieces had a bittersweet and sophisticated flavor. Listen if you can Fred Hersch´s Passion Flower (Nonesuch) or Joe Henderson´s Lush Life (Verve). The Lament For An Orchid (Absinthe) by Fred Hersch stays with you. Maybe in a not so distant future someone will write an album on Strayhorn similar in some degree to what Joni Mitchell did with Charlie Mingus.
