Lush Life

by David Hajdu

  Nearly everyone has a rosy view

  But every now and then

  It seems that something happens

  Which even I can’t understand

  And the perspective of such nice people as these

  Seems to go askew.

  Turning to his closest contact in the New York theater world, Strayhorn asked Herbert Machiz for an informal critique of the outline, the sample scenes, and the songs he and Henderson had written for Rose-Colored Glasses, then turned to the matter of whether he could make some money without Ellington. Strayhorn’s basic expenses were still being covered by the Ellington organization, since reissues of his old compositions in the new LP format were pulling in royalties; in addition, Strayhorn was still accommodating Ellington with new arrangements. “He wasn’t on the scene a lot like he was before,” recalled Jimmy Hamilton, the Ellington Orchestra clarinetist. “It was a situation where Duke still called him if he needed him, and Billy, he was there if he was needed. But their heads was somewhere else.” Indeed, Ellington was increasingly employing other arrangers (drummer Louie Bellson and the West Coast bandleader Gerald Wilson contributed arrangements), and he discussed a full-time slot with at least one musician, a little-known black orchestral composer named Frank Fields. “Duke offered him Strayhorn’s job,” said Fields’s friend Sam Shaw, who saw Ellington and Fields at Luckey Roberts’s place the night Fields declined the bid. “Ellington really laid on the charm,” said Shaw. “He told Fields how brilliant he was and what an honor it would be to work with him. He said he could really use someone with Fields’s abilities because Billy was doing other things now. Now, Fields respected both Ellington and Strayhorn, but he turned Ellington down. He just didn’t know enough about jazz.” With his involvement with Ellington scaled back, Strayhorn found the Ellington money diminishing. “That was a time when he really didn’t have very much,” recalled his friend Bill Patterson. “He was taking the subway again when he had to go downtown, which says something about him,” as one who used to call a limo for the kick of the ride.

  Strayhorn earned a bit for some recording-session work over the course of 1955, though he certainly didn’t do the work for the money: he accompanied Lena Horne on piano for fourteen recordings made under Lennie Hayton’s supervision for RCA. As was the convention for popular vocal LPs at the time, none of the musicians was credited on the records, but recording-session ledgers identify Strayhorn as the pianist on Horne’s renditions of “You Go to My Head” (one of Strayhorn’s favorite songs, according to both Horne and Aaron Bridgers; it celebrates drunken delirium as a metaphor for love), “Love Me or Leave Me,” “It’s All Right with Me,” “Fun to Be Fooled” and ten other recordings made from March through July 1955. “She was real comfortable with Strayhorn at the piano. She was nervous and shy, and she wouldn’t do a take without Strayhorn, even though her own husband was the leader and a hell of a pianist,” remembered Jimmy Maxwell, who played trumpet on seven of these dates. Elegantly restrained, Strayhorn cushioned Horne’s eggshell voice with gentle support. “He was a great accompanist for me because he understood me and loved me,” said Horne. “But he was also musically great for me; he had a trick of hearing the breath. When you sing, you need air, and he made a soft little bed right there to support the structure, so while you’re taking your breath, nobody knows. It takes an awful lot of sensitivity.” That summer, Strayhorn took to the road with Horne and served as her pianist for several months of engagements, including three weeks at Chicago’s Chez Paree. (In its review, the Chicago Defender noted Horne’s performance of Strayhorn’s “Oo, You Make Me Tingle,” composed for Rose-Colored Glasses.) The two old friends romped like reunited schoolmates. During the days, they’d phone up acquaintances for lunch, usually shop some, or lie about Horne’s hotel room reading magazines. Once, in the spirit of café-society scholarship, they decided to learn mixology and bought a Mr. Boston Official Bartender’s Guide and every variety of liquor, cordial, and mixer required for each major drink in the book, which they made in alphabetical order: the Abbey cocktail, the absinthe cocktail, the Acapulco, and on through several dozen concoctions mixed—and tested—over three days. Horne and Strayhorn got very sick.

  “A lot of time that year, when Billy was the pianist in the trio, it was like he had a direct psychic link to Lena,” said Chico Hamilton, the drummer, who rounded out the group with bassist George Duvivier. “When she was singing, he translated what she was feeling on the piano and sent back to her in his music at the same time. It went both ways.” Taking that bilateral musicality deeper still, Strayhorn composed a pair of new tunes intimately tailored to Horne’s personality and vocal approach: a graceful love song tided “You’re the One” and a bitingly cynical swipe at the caprice of romance called “Maybe”:

  Love is a shoestring.

  Any way you tie it, it may come undone.

  Life is a new thing.

  Every day something lost, something won.

  Maybe I’ll see him again,

  Maybe the moon will be there big and bright again,

  Maybe …

  Then again, maybe not.

  Strayhorn had both songs, as well as “Oo, You Make Me Tingle,” published by Hayton-Horne Music, Inc., rather than by Ellington’s Tempo Music. (The other new music from Rose-Colored Glasses was not published.) “I was lying on the couch reading while Billy was writing ‘Maybe,’” said Bill Patterson. “He said, ‘I’m working on a new song for Lena—what do you think?’ And he played me some of it and sang it for me. And to be perfectly honest, I thought it was awful. There just wasn’t very much there. It wasn’t much of anything. I said something like, ‘Oh, what do I know?’ or something and kept reading until Lena came in a little while later. She sat down with him on the piano stool and they went over it, and then she stood up and she sang the song, and I couldn’t believe it. It sounded like a completely different song. He had written this thing perfectly for her and her attitude—her voice, the way she sang a line. There wasn’t a trace of Billy Strayhorn in that song. There was nothing in it except pure Lena Horne. I was amazed.”

  With his new work apart from Ellington, especially Rose-Colored Glasses and his custom songs for Lena Horne, Strayhorn indulged his love for writing lyrics as well as music, a passion that had lain more or less dormant since his early career in Pittsburgh. His duties as a composer and orchestrator for Ellington’s projects allowed little time for coming up with words too. Despite the enthusiasm for Strayhorn’s lyrics that Ellington had expressed when they first met, Strayhorn proceeded to generate relatively few for the Ellington Orchestra and its offshoots: “A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing,” “Grievin’,” “I Don’t Mind,” “I’m Checkin’ Out, Goom Bye,” “Love Like This Can’t Last,” and “Take the ‘A’ Train.” Lyricists were called on to set a few other Strayhorn compositions to words: “Blossom” (lyrics by Johnny Mercer), “Day Dream” (John Latouche), and “Just A-Sittin’ and A-Rockin’” (Lee Gaines). (Mercer Ellington, delving into artist management briefly in the early 1950s, asked a young singer-pianist protégé from Washington, Dini Clarke; to set words to two Strayhorn compositions, “After All” and “Johnny Come Lately,” but they were never published, evidently having been rejected by Strayhorn. As Clarke recalled, “They introduced me to Billy, and he wasn’t very happy about my writing words for his songs. He wasn’t very nice to me.”) “Billy couldn’t do everything and didn’t choose to, so various lyric writers were brought in sometimes,” said Ruth Ellington Boatwright, who, as the president of Tempo Music, contracted most of the lyricists involved in Strayhorn’s songs. “Billy assisted Edward where his wonderful talents were most helpful to Edward.”

  When Strayhorn applied himself to both words and music, as he was doing on his own now, the work had an eager charm and intelligence. Like Ira Gershwin, principal lyricist for Strayhorn’s boyhood idol George Gershwin, Strayhorn valued cleverness, especially in lighter up-tempo numbers such as “Still in Love with You”:

&nb
sp; I bought some new fur

  Went on a spree

  Looked into the future

  Yes, and what did I see?

  At times, however, he could slip into self-consciousness or artificiality, as in the bridge of the same song:

  I thought the bright city lights

  Would blot out your eyes

  Or at least dim them a bit …

  In more serious-minded ballads such as “Love Has Passed Me By, Again,” Strayhorn tended to temper his wordplay:

  Love has passed me by again

  Don’t ask me why

  I simply cannot tell you

  How love could pass me by again

  And cast me in the role of Romeo at large.

  Nevertheless, he succumbs to pretense:

  I have traveled far and wide

  Cupid’s cavalry to ride

  But there’s only gravel deep inside

  Down inside my heart.

  Among professional lyricists, Strayhorn was widely seen as a gifted original whose skills were neglected. “Strayhorn had a beautiful way with words,” said Mitchell Parrish, who wrote the lyrics to Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady.” “Strayhorn loved language. He didn’t write very much, though, did he? If he did more, I think he could have been a major lyricist.” Humility—or full-blown insecurity as a lyricist—might have kept Strayhorn from writing more words, according to the jazz singer and lyricist Jon Hendricks. “I was working at Basin Street East [in New York] with Duke and Art Blakey, and while Blakey was on, I was back in the dressing room with Duke, and Strays was there,” recalled Hendricks. “And he said to me, he said, ‘You know, Jonny, I would like for you to come up and listen to some of my tunes and write some words to them.’ And I said, ‘Didn’t you write the lyrics to “Lush Life”? You don’t need a lyricist!’ He didn’t realize how good he was—that was how humble he was. I’ll tell you how good he was. When he applied himself, he was as close to perfect as you’ll find. And I’ll tell you why. Several reasons. He wrote everything—the theme of the words, the melody, and the actual language—as a complete whole. He was a perfectionist. And he was honest. His words were real. Oh, yeah—and he was a genius. That comes in handy.” Sammy Cahn, though unfamiliar with much of Strayhorn’s work, always held the words to “Lush Life” in esteem. “Frank [Sinatra] and I love that song,” he said. “Those words, the maturity. Sophistication. You really had to have lived a life to write that. Frank adored that.” On learning that Strayhorn wrote “Lush Life” as a young man in Pittsburgh in the 1930s, Cahn added, “Then I amend my words, which I rarely do, by the way. He wasn’t only talented. He had some balls.”

  Working as a musician outside of Ellington’s projects, Strayhorn participated in a couple of recording sessions for artists other than Lena Horne during this period, but for friends, resisting the temptation to beef up his income with studio work. “Billy could have done a million sessions,” said Jimmy Maxwell. “He was fast. He was good. Half the studio piano players I worked with weren’t that good. Why didn’t he? Billy wasn’t what you’d say a professional. He was an artistic man.” In two sessions a year apart, Strayhorn recorded with Ellington’s former tenor saxophonist Ben Webster and the singer Carmen McRae, an Ellingtonian once removed, having sung with one of Mercer Ellington’s bands. The Webster date, for Norman’s Granz’s Verve label, on May 28, 1954, was another of Granz’s efforts to expand jazz’s popularity by backing illustrious soloists with string orchestras. Earlier, Granz had featured Charlie Parker in a string setting to mixed critical reaction but great success in the marketplace. Granz commissioned one of his favorite arrangers, Ralph Burns, to handle the orchestrations for Webster; it was a comfortable match, since Webster used to drink with Burns on 52nd Street. Of course, Webster drank with everyone on 52nd Street, including Strayhorn, whom Granz brought in, to the delight of both Webster and Burns, as the arranger for four songs: the Gershwins’ “Love Is Here to Stay”; “It Happens to Be Me,” a dulcet ballad by the pop songwriters Arthur Kent and Sammy Gallop; the Ellington ballad “All Too Soon”; and Strayhorn’s own “Chelsea Bridge.” “I knew Billy wanted to write for strings, and he could do it, unlike most straight jazz guys,” said Granz. “Since he never got the chance to write for strings with Duke, he jumped at it.” Marking Strayhorn’s debut as an arranger for full string orchestra, the three songs for Webster sounded much like his best mood pieces for the Ellington Orchestra, naturally flowing, with currents of melodic and harmonic movement. The arrangements seem to wash all around Webster rather than float underneath or fill up the background. Strayhorn also played piano for all three selections, complementing Webster’s hefty tone with Tatum-influenced delicacy. “I don’t know why he didn’t arrange the whole album,” said Ralph Burns. “I got the feeling he did all he wanted to do.”

  For Carmen McRae on June 14, 1955, Strayhorn sat in on one number, his “Something to Live For,” replacing the session’s pianist, Dick Katz. Recorded at the Pythian Temple, a big catering hall on Manhattan’s Upper West Side that became a hot recording location because of its enviable acoustics, the “Something to Live For” session had been arranged by McRae and Strayhorn at a party the previous weekend. “I wanted him to play for me, and I asked him,” said McRae. “I didn’t think he would show up. I thought he was drunk. He was drunk. I thought he was just being nice, nice and drunk. I never really expected him to come. The day came, and I looked out from the stage they had there where you recorded, and Swee’ Pea walked through the door and sat down in the auditorium area they had. We finished one song, and I said, ‘You want to play, Swee’ Pea?’ He said, ‘Sure!’ And we cut it. No sheet music. We just cut it.” The bassist on the date, Wendell Marshall, relished playing with Strayhorn, whom he knew well from his stint as Ellington’s bassist. (Marshall had left the orchestra after seven years in January of that year, preferring New York studio work to the road.) “It was the easiest thing in the world playing with Strayhorn,” said Marshall. “He carried you along.”

  Strayhorn turned forty on November 29, 1955, and he seemed to be at a halfway point. Behind him, there had been Homewood, Ellington, and Aaron Bridgers. In the present, there was Lena Horne, the Copasetics, the theater, and the subway, and not only the A train. Before him … it seemed that Luther Henderson had an idea. Since both he and Strayhorn had so much in common, why not go into business together? “He was extricating himself from Ellington, and I was working independently at the time,” explained Henderson. “Between the two of us, we had the know-how and the connections to make it. We could develop new artists, put together nightclub acts, write material, make records. How could we lose?” After a day of reflection, Strayhorn said he agreed, and with a handshake the two new partners mapped out some plans. The first order of business: tell Ellington.

  7

  ALL ROADS LEAD BACK TO YOU

  It no longer meant everything to have that swing. As former jitterbuggers settled into Levittowns, demand for the dance-floor instrumental music of the big bands gave way to a new market for the lounging sounds of crooners like Doris Day and Vic Damone. One swing-era showplace with wall-to-wall dancers, the Oceanliner nightclub on New Jersey’s Route 22, a few miles outside of Manhattan, became a carpet showroom. Jazz bandleaders scrambled through the early 1950s: Basie broke up his big band and started touring with a septet; Woody Herman, suffering constant personnel changes in his orchestra, put together a series of small groups; Artie Shaw formed a quintet, the Gramercy Five, then just gave up and retired to Spain; Harry James went into semiretirement; Andy Kirk went into real estate. Ellington fared comparatively well, though not without his own problems. In January 1951, Norman Granz lured away the restless Johnny Hodges, who took along trombonist Lawrence Brown and drummer Sonny Greer (the latter had been with Ellington since his first band in Washington in the 1920s), to record and tour for Granz’s Clef label. “I didn’t have to persuade Johnny. All he wanted was the financial and organizational support to permit him to pull the plug wit
h Duke,” said Granz. “Although Duke didn’t call me directly, he let it be known that he thought I was making a terrible mistake—Johnny wasn’t good enough to make it under his own name. This came from Duke, who had been producing Johnny as a small-band solo act for many years.” As Hodges’s wife recalled, “Johnny knew Duke was hurt. That wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted something good for himself. He didn’t want something bad for Duke.” (As turnabout that March, Ellington gained drummer Louie Bellson, alto saxophonist Willie Smith, and his own former valve trombonist Juan Tizol when the three of them left the Harry James organization.) The singer Al Hibbler quit at the end of that year in a squabble over whether he could freelance; he had accepted a booking on his own at the High Hat Club in Boston. “Man, [Ellington] was mad at me,” said Hibbler. “‘How dare you sing without me? Who do you think you are, Billy Eckstine? Frank Sinatra?’ I said, ‘I don’t think I’m none of those guys. But I don’t belong to you. You don’t own me, you baggy-eyed cocksucker. I quit.’”