Approaching jazz composition through the music of Billy Strayhorn

Leonie Freudenberger

Name: Leonie Freudenberger Main Subject: Jazz Saxophone Research Coach: Karst de Jong Title of Research: Approaching jazz composition through the music of Billy Strayhorn Research Question: What are the most important elements of Billy Strayhorn's compositions? How can I incorporate his compositional approach in my own writing? Billy Strayhorn (1915–1976) was a jazz pianist, composer, arranger, orchestrator and lyricist whose works have influenced the genre of jazz music until today. The research contains two phases: First, the analysis of his compositions. Second, the attempt to compose originals using the detected stylistic, harmonic, melodic and conceptional tools. Considering the enormous oeuvre that Strayhorn produced, it is inevitable to make a selection of songs to analyze. My criteria for this selection are the following: Which songs have become part of the standard repertoire in jazz, performed by various artists throughout the 20th (and 21st) century? Where can I find aural trademarks, which I recognize both as a listener and as a player and which contribute to my personal perception of the “Strayhorn sound”? Can the compositions be reduced to a lead sheet and performed by a small jazz combo without losing their essence? My final intention is not only to compose using Strayhorn-typical elements and tools, but also to write music for myself as a performer and for my group to play it. On longer terms, I hope that I can abstract this method further on and profit from it beyond the results of this research. Biography: Leonie Freudenberger, born 1988 in Baden-Baden (D), has played the alto saxophone since her childhood. She started her professional jazz education at the University of Music in Mannheim in 2008 and came to Den Haag in 2011, where she finished her Bachelor's degree. Apart from her Master studies, she writes music and performs with her own group and takes part in various projects, playing alto and baritone saxophone.

A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing

Strayhorn wrote this piece in the same year as Chelsea Bridge, 1941. It was due to a dispute between the national broadcast stations and ASCAP, the American Society of Composers and Publishers, that Ellington, an ASCAP member, could not publish any music copyrighted in his name on public radio. To solve this problem and have his shows broadcasted, he commissioned both his son Mercer and Billy Strayhorn to compose new material. A Flower was another alto feature for Johnny Hodges, first recorded in 1946, and several times later on. In ’65, the orchestra recorded it with Ella Fitzgerald signing Strayhorn’s later added lyrics.

Just like Chelsea Bridge, A Flower was based on a harmonic idea outgrowing the conventional, functional jazz harmony. The piece centers on a so-called harmonic ostinato, a tool that can be found, for example, in the earlier compositions Ugly Duckling or Lush Life (here as a two-chord ostinato in the verse), but also in Dizzy Gillespie’s A Night in Tunisia (est.1942). Ostinatos and two-chord sequences can be found in the following era of modal jazz, in tunes such as My Favorite Things played by John Coltrane or Miles Davis’s So What.

Strayhorn’s stylistic signature in this context is a chromatic melody, as opposed to melodies based on diatonic scales. In the first four bars, the melody wavers between the #11 and the 13 of the static B^9#11 chord. In bar 5, a chain of dominants begins, and the melody breaks out into wider gests for two bars, before it soothes down and affirms the tonic of Db by repeating this note three times, synchronous to the harmonic rhythm. The bridge of the 32-bar AABA form consists of a two-bar motif, sequenced twice and forming a sentence. The harmonic track goes from Db to D and back, however resolving in the B^9#11 of the final “A” section.

The lyrics to this song are thematically as romantic as the title implies: An innocent description of different kinds of flowers and their attributes.

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