- Description
- xii, 265 pages : illustrations; 24 cm.
- Summary
- "A study of the legacy of Black queer composer, arranger, and pianist Billy Strayhorn (1915-1967), exploring how Strayhorn's identity as an openly gay Black jazz musician shaped his career, musical sensibility, and the dynamics with his collaborators"--
- "Queer Arrangements is a new study of Billy Strayhorn that examines his music and career at the intersection of jazz and Black queer history. The legacy of Black queer composer, arranger and pianist Billy Strayhorn (1915-1967) hovers at the edge of canonical jazz narratives. Queer Arrangements explores the ways in which Strayhorn's identity as an openly gay Black jazz musician shaped his career, including the creative roles he could assume and the dynamics between himself and his collaborators, most famously Duke Ellington, but also iconic singers such as Lena Horne and Ella Fitzgerald. This new portrait of Strayhorn combines critical, historically-situated close readings of selected recordings, scores and performances with biography and cultural theory to pursue alternative interpretive jazz possibilities, Black queer historical routes and sounds. By looking at jazz history through the instrument(s) of Strayhorn's queer arrangements, this book sheds new light on his music and on jazz collaboration at midcentury"--
- Series Statement
- Music/culture
- Uniform Title
- Music/culture.
- Subject
- Genre/Form
- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Contents
- Introduction. Queer Arrangements, Queer Collaboration -- Part I. Working Behind the Scenes : Gender, Sexuality, and Collaboration in Strayhorn's Vocal Arrangements. Arriving by "Flamingo" ; Difficult Beauty -- Part II. Strayhorn's Queer Music. Strayhorn's Lorcian Encounter ; Black Queer Moves in the Strayhorn-Ellington Nutcracker Suite -- Part III. Strayhorn Performing/Arranging Strayhorn. Paris, Halfway to Dawn, or Listening to the Peaceful Side -- Epilogue. Ever Up and Onward, or Searching for Strayhorn in the Twenty-First Century.
- ISBN
- 9780819500632
- 0819500631
- 9780819500649
- 081950064X
- 9780819500656 (canceled/invalid)
- LCCN
- 2023015025
- OCLC
- YBP 2023015025
- Author
Barg, Lisa, author.
- Title
Queer arrangements : Billy Strayhorn and midcentury jazz collaboration / Lisa Barg.
- Publisher
Middletown, Connecticut : Wesleyan University Press, [2023]
- Type of Content
text
- Type of Medium
unmediated
- Type of Carrier
volume
- Series
Music/culture
Music/culture.
- Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Other Form:
Online version: Barg, Lisa. Queer arrangements First. Middletown, Connecticut : Wesleyan University Press, [2023] 9780819500656 (DLC) 2023015026