Finding Strayhorn: Exploring the Billy Strayhorn Collection at the Library of Congress

Held June 12th at the Library of Congress in Washington DC., this special panel-and-performance event highlighted the personal collection of an important star in the jazz firmament, composer, arranger and pianist Billy Strayhorn. Saxophonist Chris Potter, Strayhorn biographer David Hajdu, and jazz scholar Walter van de Leur, PhD, joined the composer’s niece, A. Alyce Claerbaut, President, Strayhorn Songs, Inc., and nephew, Gregory A. Morris, PhD, for an introduction to the recently acquired Library of Congress jazz treasure. Now available to scholars, researchers and performers, the collection contains nearly 18,000 documents, including approximately 3,000 music manuscripts in Strayhorn’s own handwriting—lead sheets, piano-vocal scores and complete orchestrations—and a rich trove of sketch materials. A list of manuscripts includes hundreds of songs, written by Strayhorn—many for the Duke Ellington orchestra—-among them landmark compositions like “Take the ‘A’ Train,” “Lush Life,” “Something to Live For,” “Rain Check” and “Chelsea Bridge.”