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Billy Strayhorn
(November 29, 1915 - May 31, 1967) U.S.A.

Billy Strayhorn

Musician

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Born in Dayton, Ohio, William Thomas Strayhorn was rised in Hilsboro, North Carolina. As a teen, Strayhorn dreamed of being a classical composer, though the dream soon met the reality of the deeply-segregated musical world; classical music was not open to black composers. At nineteen, Strayhorn's attention turned to jazz, and it was around this time that he saw his first Duke Ellington concert. Years later, in 1938, Strayhorn met Ellington and showed the bandleader how he would have arranged one of Sir Duke's pieces; Ellington was so impressed that he arranged a meeting between Strayhorn and the full band, thus beginning a partnership that lasted until Strayhorn's death. His classical and jazz training, combined with sophisticated taste, was appreciated by Ellington, who described him as "my listener, my most dependable appraiser [and] critic." The pair's work together produced some of Ellington's best-known pieces, including Take the 'A' Train and Lush Life .

Other compositions, include: Chelsea Bridgeand Passion Flower. He collaborated with Ellington on a number of extended suites including: Such Sweet Thunder, A Drum Is a Woman, and Perfume Suite.

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Although open with his friends about his homosexuality, Billy stayed in Ellington's shadow, because "a more public life would have required the hypocrisy of a 'marriage of convenience' or other subterfuge." Ellington's well-known heterosexual promiscuousness was contrasted by Strayhorn's long-term romantic homosexual relationships.

Billy Strayhorn's 1st relationship, in fact, was with Aaron Bridgers and lasted 10 years. His second lover was Bill Grove, from 1964 to Billy's death. In 1964, Strayhorn was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, from which he died, at the age of fifty-one.

In his autobiography, Duke Ellington listed what he considered to be Strayhorn's "four major moral freedoms": "Freedom from hate, unconditionally; Freedom from self-pity (even through all the pain and bad news); Freedom from fear of possibly doing something that might possibly help another more than it might himself; and Freedom from the kind of pride that might make a man think that he was better than his brother or his neighbor".

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Source: http://lgbt-history-archive.tumblr.com/

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