[Dixielandjazz] Billy Strayhorn festival in Chicago

[Robert Ringwald]

Billy Strayhorn's Music to Bask in a Brighter Spotlight -- in Chicago
by Howard Reich
Chicago Tribune, July 3, 2012
He was the equal of Duke Ellington (at least) and the composer of such indelible
works as "Take the 'A' Train," "Lush Life," "Chelsea Bridge" and other American classics.
But Billy Strayhorn, who died in 1967 at age 51, remains vastly overshadowed by Ellington,
even though Strayhorn was integral to composing and arranging many landmark Ellington
works. These included the brilliant jazz score for the film "Anatomy of a Murder,"
the groundbreaking symphonic work "Black, Brown and Beige" and the periodically revived
stage musical "Jump for Joy."
In coming months, however, Strayhorn's profile seems likely to rise, thanks to a
series of events leading up to his centennial in 2015 -- the groundswell originating
in Chicago and environs.
In October, a three-day Billy Strayhorn Festival will feature major jazz artists
in performance and cultural scholars in discussion at the Music Institute of Chicago,
in Evanston.
And plans are underway for the world premiere of a musical, "Sacred: Strayhorn and
Ellington," produced by Manny Fox, who also launched the Ellington revue "Sophisticated
Ladies" in the 1980s. Contracts have not been signed, but Fox, who plans to use nearly
two dozen songs from the Ellington-Strayhorn canon, has asked for a hold on dates
next May and June at the Auditorium Theatre for what he says will be a pre-Broadway
production.
"We're holding the theater for him, if it all comes to pass," says Brett Batterson,
executive director of the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University, noting the
still tentative nature of the plans.
"It's exciting. It's a great idea."
Part of the reason Chicago will be playing a pivotal role in the Strayhorn celebrations
owes to the fact that Alyce Claerbaut -- Strayhorn's niece and the president of Billy
Strayhorn Songs Inc., which manages the composer's published works -- long has lived
and worked here. Championing Strayhorn's legacy has been practically a lifelong mission
for her, and she sees the centennial as a unique opportunity to advance it.
The idea, says Claerbaut, "is to assure that he will be in the pantheon of great
American composers. He is under-recognized, and everything we do -- such as the Billy
Strayhorn Festival -- is to correct history."
Within music circles, Strayhorn already commands great stature on the strength of
his own compositions -- even apart from his still not fully documented contributions
to Ellington's. But in popular culture, Strayhorn never has come close to enjoying
Ellington's acclaim, the latter's fame as global symbol of American jazz matched
only by Louis Armstrong's.
Yet there were other, darker reasons that Strayhorn's musical identity was submerged
beneath Ellington's.
"Duke Ellington was a great man … but he was as great a publisher as he was a composer
-- he had publishing power," says Claerbaut of the justly revered musician, who died
in 1974 at age 75.
"There was a tension between the two of them, but Billy couldn't leave Duke, because
Duke was the publisher, and (Billy) couldn't take his songs with him."
Also, says Claerbaut, who knew Ellington for years, there was the then-taboo subject
of Strayhorn's homosexuality.
"Duke had a publicist who was homophobic, and he would go and wipe out any credit
Billy would have," says Claerbaut. "Duke knew this, but he wouldn't stop him. He
didn't do it, but he allowed it. …
"When we (Strayhorn Songs) consented to this musical, we decided we should have something
that really heals this.
"Manny (Fox) is a longtime Duke fan. He said, 'That's the one thing that has to be
addressed.' He wanted to do it in a way that's not condemning.
"This was a sacred journey," adds Claerbaut, referring to Ellington and Strayhorn's
historic and extraordinarily productive partnership. "There are a lot of relationships
that we are destined to have, but they have their difficulties, and the outcome is
what is destined to be. And (in this case), the outcome is this great catalog" of
music.
Or, as producer Fox puts it, "They were both great (even) without each other. Together,
it was the greatest music written by anyone. …
"Just a couple of years ago, it came to me: I could make an amazing Broadway show
(tracing) the journey from the sensuous to the divine," adds Fox, who earlier had
placed the story's emphasis on Ellington.
"So I got deeply into it. And somewhere in the middle of it, just a few months ago,
I wrote the libretto and selected 23 tunes that I wanted in the thing," including
much of Ellington's sacred music.
"Then it occurred to me: Hey, Billy Strayhorn got short shrift. .. Billy had the
classical chops, and he brought that extra dimension" to much of Ellington's music.
Though the emerging show traces the composers' journeys in life and music, "The real
'sacred' is their relationship to each other," adds Fox.
For Claerbaut, it's critical to raise Strayhorn's visibility, but not at the expense
of Ellington's. Though she acknowledges the difficulties in their musical/business
relationship, she says Ellington suffered, as well.
"The one trick that Mother Nature played on him was the one that he wasn't expecting:
that Billy would die first," says Claerbaut. "That was the biggest shock of his life.
He wasn't prepared for that. He grieved for that. And I think his conscience ate
him alive. I think he had no solace….
"He really grieved Billy till the day he died. So that relationship, and the sacredness
of this relationship, is the core of this.
"That's how we're deciding to tell this story."
As for the Billy Strayhorn Festival, it could serve to burnish the reputation of
both Strayhorn and the institution that's honoring him.
"We're always looking for opportunities to call attention to the fact that we have
a wonderful jazz program with a lot of great faculty," says Mark George, president
and CEO of the Music Institute of Chicago.
"Jazz has a history of being literally a back-alley kind of music to becoming (the
focus of) Ph.D programs. I think Strayhorn was one of those early guys that, quote
unquote, gave the music credibility.
"He was just so obviously gifted on Mozartean proportions that you had to take him
seriously."
Soon, perhaps, many more people will.
__________
Following is the complete lineup for the Billy Strayhorn Festival, which will unfold
in Nichols Concert Hall of the Music Institute of Chicago, 1490 Chicago Ave., Evanston.
For more information, visit
https://www.musicinst.org
7 p.m. Oct. 26: Screening of an updated version of Robert Levi's documentary film
"Lush Life," followed by panel discussion featuring Victor Goines, director of jazz
studies at Northwestern University; Strayhorn biographer David Hajdu; trumpeter Terell
Stafford; and WBEZ 91.5 FM broadcaster Richard Steele, who will host.
7:30 p.m. Oct. 27: Terell Stafford Sextet playing music from his recording "This
Side of Strayhorn."
3 p.m. Oct. 28: Performance by Music Institute of Chicago jazz faculty, with guest
reedist Victor Goines, vocalist Tammy McCann and the Northwestern University Jazz
Ensemble.