Lush Life (Billy Strayhorn Song)
Lush Life is a jazz standard written by Billy Strayhorn , with which he auditioned for Duke Ellington in 1938 . The original title, Life is lonely , was the passage of time after the line of text I live a lush life in Lush Life renamed. The ballad was not published until 1948 .
Background and characteristics of the song
Strayhorn was only 18 when he began working on the song in 1933 and wrote the main body of the song; he completed the song in 1938. Lush Life is characterized by a refined structure and is not written in the usual AABA song form , but in a 52-bar AABCC form, with two different variants of the C section. Strayhorn's lyrics describe the grief after a failed love: The dandy and bon vivant, who appreciated jazz as well as cocktails and hung around in expensive bars, remained basically lonely. The text is now "one of the highlights of American consumer poetry."
Ellington didn't like the song. Nevertheless, according to Ellington's son Mercer Ellington , Lush Life and the also played Something to Live For were the main reason for Ellington to employ Strayhorn in his band in 1939. It was the beginning of a long-lasting collaboration between Ellington and Strayhorn, during which Strayhorn put his own work on hold and completed Ellington's ideas.
For Strayhorn the song was “a private refuge”, which is why he did not initially consider recording it or publishing it through a publisher. Strayhorn played the song but occasionally at private parties, where it was also heard by Norman Granz in 1948 , who persuaded Strayhorn to publish the song.
Reception history
The song was first recorded on November 13, 1948 at one of Ellington's Carnegie Hall concerts with singer Kay Davis and Strayhorn on piano; However, this recording was initially not distributed. The first commercial recording followed in 1949: It was made by Nat King Cole , who played the song as Latin Jazz and also made textual errors in his lecture. Strayhorn was upset about this.
1953 followed two instrumental versions by Harry James and by Chet Baker / Russ Freeman . In 1954, Strayhorn used the song as the final number in the musical show Rose-Colored Glasses . Strayhorn recorded Lush Life for his 1961 solo LPs The Peaceful Side and for the 1964 Lush Life [Red Baron] .
John Coltrane recorded the song twice: The first recording was made in 1958 as the title track of an album released by Prestige Records . The second recording from 1963 with his quartet and the crooner Johnny Hartman on the album John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman is considered an exemplary interpretation. She was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame . Tony Scott dealt intensively with the multi-faceted song and recorded it in very different versions - a double CD. Like Strayhorn, these musicians not only played the chorus , as is usual in jazz , but also interpreted the verse . This has remained the custom since then; an exception was the 1971 interpretation by Stan Getz , who only played the chorus. There are also interpretations of Ella Fitzgerald , Sarah Vaughan , Kevin Mahogany Jimmy Rowles ( Plays Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn , 1981) to be mentioned.
Nancy Wilson (1967) and Linda Ronstadt (1984, with Nelson Riddle ) in turn recorded the song and named albums after it. Even Donna Summer interpreted Lush Life (1982), as well as the crooner Johnny Mathis on his Duke Ellington Tribute In a Sentimental Mood (1990) and Natalie Cole in their 1991 album " Unforgettable With Love" .
The song eventually became Strayhorn's signature feature. Strayhorn's biography by David Hajdu is accordingly called Lush Life . Entitled Lush Life took tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson , a much acclaimed tribute album with compositions of Strayhorn's.
Use in film
Lush Life has also been used in feature films several times :
- Dead Again (1991, Kenneth Branagh )
- Living Out Loud (1998, Queen Latifah )
- Sidewalks of New York (2001, Chet Baker)
literature
- Hans-Jürgen Schaal (Ed.): Jazz standards. The encyclopedia. 3rd, revised edition. Bärenreiter, Kassel u. a. 2004, ISBN 3-7618-1414-3 .
Web links
- Lush Life Song portrait at JazzStandards.com (accessed February 5, 2011)