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the gar spot fiction and musings from a gay black dude with delusions above his station

Tag: Billy Strayhorn

This is Johnny Hodges

Posted on July 25, 2016July 25, 2019 by gar

Duke Ellington’s Famous Orchestra had many great soloists. Indeed, it was a band of great soloists. But one stood a notch above them all, alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges. Jazz writer Scott Yanow states that Hodges possessed “the most beautiful tone ever heard in jazz.” He formed his style early in his career and never varied…

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A Strayhorn Lagniappe: More Music & A Picture Book

Posted on January 10, 2016January 10, 2016 by gar

First, I have to correct a glaring omission. In my post recommending Strayhorn recordings to pick up, I left off something that I myself own: Marian McPartland plays the music of Billy Strayhorn. Why did I clumsily leave it off the list? Because when I went to my collection to pull out stuff to recommend, I neglected to find…

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Music to Live For – The Strayhorn Centenary Project

Posted on November 29, 2015November 29, 2015 by gar

New York City will host several events to mark the 100th anniversary of Billy Strayhorn’s birth. Details can be found at a special centennial website. Ah, to be in New York this autumn. Fortunately, we all have access to his incredible body of music. Here’s just a short selection of recommendations and some of my favorite…

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The Final Years – The Strayhorn Centenary Project

Posted on November 28, 2015November 29, 2015 by gar

The homophobia that Joe Morgen, Duke Ellington’s publicist, possessed only reflected the homophobia of the society at large in the late 1950s. Around the time the New York Times ignored Strayhorn in its review of Such Sweet Thunder, a move undoubtedly engineered by Morgen, the Amsterdam News, Harlem’s daily, published a series of articles and…

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Our Love Has Faded – The Strayhorn Centenary Project

Posted on November 23, 2015 by gar

Bebop hit the scene in the early 1940s and grew as the decade progressed. Rhythm and blues got more attention as the 40s rolled to a conclusion. Thus, by 1950, club owners began booking smaller R & B combos and jazz joints booked bebop combos. It was cheaper to pay 4-6 musicians than a large…

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The Swing Era – The Strayhorn Centenary Project

Posted on November 15, 2015 by gar

1939 was a good year for a composer/arranger to join the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Several important musicians joined its ranks around this time, adding to the band’s considerable aural palette. Jimmy Blanton freed the bass from its simple time-keeping role and made it a fluid, melodic instrument. This is best heard on the track “Jack…

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Baby Boy Strayhorn – The Strayhorn Centenary Project

Posted on November 8, 2015 by gar

For the first few years of his life, Billy Strayhorn didn’t have a name. His parents had buried two of three children born before him, so when the new born started life sickly, with rickets, they did not rush to name him. He was called “Baby Boy Strayhorn” on his birth certificate. The rickets went…

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Late Era Ellington: . . .And His Mother Called Him Bill

Posted on May 25, 2013 by gar

{Ed. note: Much of the biographical information in this article is supported by Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn by David Hajdu (North Point Press, 1996).} By the time the Duke Ellington Orchestra went on their first State Department-sponsored tour, which yielded The Far East Suite, long-time Ellington co-composer and arranger Billy Strayhorn was already a…

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Late Era Ellington: The Far East Suite

Posted on May 18, 2013 by gar

In 1956, during the halcyon days of the Cold War and immediately after the McCarthy era, the US State Department began an interesting experiment.  Take some of America’s top jazz talent and put them on tour to spread goodwill and music to the people’s of the world. They selected Dizzy Gillespie, a showman’s showman, to…

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Late Era Duke Ellington

Posted on May 12, 2013May 12, 2013 by gar

My mom used to say of Mozart that one can like only a third of Mozart’s music and still like a lot of Mozart.  Very true.  In his short 30 years of composing he wrote a staggering number of pieces.  The Köchel catalog of Mozart’s work, which has been revised many times to accommodate newly discovered…

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