Today Gay History: Billy Strayhorn, De Ellgton's Gay Composer

Contents:

• ‘HALFWAY TO DAWN’ SPOTLIGHTS BILLY STRAYHORN, GAY-BLACK POSER WHO REVOLUTNIZED AMERIN JAZZ
• ‘HALFWAY TO DAWN’ WORLD PREMIERE SPOTLIGHTS BILLY STRAYHORN, GAY-BLACK POSER WHO REVOLUTNIZED AMERIN JAZZ

‘HALFWAY TO DAWN’ SPOTLIGHTS BILLY STRAYHORN, GAY-BLACK POSER WHO REVOLUTNIZED AMERIN JAZZ

One of the very few openly gay jazzmen of his (or any) time, he studied at the Ptsburgh Mic Instute, and, while still his teens, began posg the songs "Somethg to Live For" and "Life Is Lonely", later renamed "Lh Life", which opens wh the le "I ed to vis all the very gay plac. "Though the word "gay" had a different meang at the time, sexual eedom and personal dividualy were a big part of jazz mic. Some blu women already allud to homosexual love their songs, and Strayhorn's own lyrics reflected his passns, always a nuanced and poetic way.

‘HALFWAY TO DAWN’ WORLD PREMIERE SPOTLIGHTS BILLY STRAYHORN, GAY-BLACK POSER WHO REVOLUTNIZED AMERIN JAZZ

"It's major to know that Strayhorn wrote 'Lh Life' as a prolifilly gifted, gay black male teenager livg Jim Crow Ameri, " says Candice Hoy, a soprano jazz sger who recently released her but album, On a Turquoise Cloud, a pilatn of rare De Ellgton songs that clus two Strayhorn posns. While posg some of the most harmonilly rich jazz of s time — often Ellgton's shadow — Strayhorn was an outlier that he led an openly gay life as a black man the 1940s, an era rife wh homophobia and racism.

Throughout his life, Strayhorn was surprisgly open about beg gay. Strayhorn’s homosexualy may have been one of the reasons he tend to shy om the spotlight, and why others shield him om . Her nfn is overstated, and maybe liberately ironic: Like her mil mentor Ma Raey, Smh had numero sexual relatnships wh both men and women, and was que faiar wh gay and lbian subcultur.

Lyrilly she rarely flirted wh homoerotic material as did Ma Raey and Bsie Smh, and her only referenc to lbianism her tobgraphy are rogatory. Billy Strayhorn, pianist and wrer wh the De Ellgton orchtra, was openly gay. Hugh' private life was also much ls public than Raey's—but most scholars believe he was gay, and he did wre sympathetilly about gay characters a number of his works.

Gay performers, and sometim gay subtext, ntued to be a part of blu and jazz and their rivativ. That history has often been obscured though, so that, for example, the mixture of gay and Ain-Amerin fluenc dis was seen at the time as somehow alien to, or outsi of, the blu/rock leage, rather than as a natural part of .

But fact, the history of pop mic general, and of black pop mic particular, has always been gay history. Durg the years, the openly gay Strayhorn fed his llaboratn wh poser De Ellgton and wrote “Take the A Tra” and other posns. Strayhorn, however, lived the olr and more famo man’s shadow publicly, one reason beg that he was one of the rare men the jazz world to be openly gay.

…the most amazg thg of all about Billy Strayhorn to me was that he had the strength to make an extraordary cisn – that is, the cisn not to hi the fact that he was homosexual.

Acrdg to playwright Robert Hei, “Lh Life” was a very popular song at Lenny’s Hiaway, a gay hangout Greenwich Village, the 1950s bee of the double meang s lyrics:. I ed to vis all the very gay plac. Billy Strayhorn, a gay poser-arranger and protégé of De Ellgton, revolutnized the Amerin jazz movement wh his pneerg mic skills.

Strayhorn also lived his life as an openly gay man durg the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, an opprsive and homophobic era. Billy Strayhorn, a black gay poser-arranger and protégé of De Ellgton, revolutnized the Amerin jazz movement the mid 20th century wh his pneerg skills. Strayhorn also lived his life as an openly gay man durg an opprsive and homophobic era.

was gay and also together wh Aaron Bridgers at the time. Strayhorn beme the first openly gay jazz mician unaaid of public mentary on his inty.

Billy Thomas Strayhorn was a black gay poser and arranger who fluenced the Amerin jazz movement wh his pneerg efforts.