RALEIGH – Perhaps the train trips from Ohio to North Carolina were a factor in stellar jazz composer Billy Strayhorn’s legendary work with Duke Ellington, “Take the A Train,” which is usually associated with New York. The train figuratively stops for dedication of a N.C. Highway Historical Marker for Strayhorn on Saturday, Nov. 29, at 10 a.m. in front of the Hillsborough fire station on Churton Street.
Although born in Dayton, Ohio, on Nov. 29, 1915, as William Thomas Strayhorn, he and his family frequently visited his grandparents in Hillsborough. Biographer David Hajdu contends that North Carolina became the legendary composer’s spiritual home. His grandparents owned a piano and introduced him to music through gospel tunes. He attended first grade in Hillsborough, where he gave his first musical performances, and was described later by a classmate as “small and bright.”
After his family moved to Pittsburgh, Strayhorn visited Hillsborough during summers through his teen-age years. He met Duke Ellington in Pittsburgh and became Ellington’s primary collaborator for more than 25 years. The versatile composer, arranger and pianist also penned the jazz standards “Lush Life,” “Satin Doll” and many other well known pieces in the Duke Ellington songbook.
Although long overshadowed by Ellington, Strayhorn has been the subject of two biographies and the 2007 documentary “Lush Life” aired on PBS. When Strayhorn died of cancer in 1967, Ellington said his friend “had no aspirations to enter into any kind of competition, yet the legacy he leaves, his oeuvre, will never be less than the ultimate on the highest plateau of culture.”
For more information about the dedication ceremony, contact Dr. Thomas Campanella at (919) 962-4776. For information about the N.C. Highway Historical Marker Program, call (919) 807-7290. The N.C. Highway Historical Marker program is administered by the Office of Archives and History and is part of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, a state agency dedicated to the promotion and protection of North Carolina’s arts, history and culture. The Department of Cultural Resources is observing the 2008 theme “Telling Our Stories.” Visit www.ncculture.com for more information.