Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life on AllMovie

Robert S. Levi writes and directs this Emmy Award-winning documentary focusing on the life of pioneering gay composer and jazz musician Billy Strayhorn, whose compositions for Duke Ellington included such timeless classics as "Satin Doll" and "Take the A Train". The driving creative force behind the Duke Ellington Orchestra from the 1940s through the 1980s, Strayhorn produced a staggering body of work that included everything from jazz greats to orchestral suites and even film soundtracks. Though historians and scholars alike are quick to single out Strayhorn as one of the most woefully overlooked American composers in history - he was a virtual unknown when he succumbed to throat cancer in 1967 - his influence lives on even at the dawn of the 21st Century. With this film, Levi offers a comprehensive view of who Strayhorn really was as both a person and a musician, while simultaneously exploring why he remains a relative unknown even to ardent jazz enthusiasts.