The composer of symphonies, operas, and film scores examines his own life and career.

"Strayhorn: An Illustrated Life is a stunning collection of essays, photographs, and ephemera celebrating Billy Strayhorn, one of the most significant yet under-appreciated contributors to 20th century American music. Released in commemoration of Strayhorn's centennial, this luxurious coffee-table book offers intimate details of the composer's life from musicians, scholars, and Strayhorn's closest relatives. Perhaps best known for his 28-year collaborative...

"With rhythmic swirls of words and pictures, Suzanne Slade and Stacy Innerst beautifully reveal just how brilliantly Gershwin reached inside his head to create his masterpiece, Rhapsody in Blue. It's a surprising and whirlwind composition of notes and sounds and one long wail of a clarinet-dazzling and daring, just like George Gershwin himself!"--[from book jacket]

A fast-moving, musically astute portrait of arguably the greatest composer of American popular music. Irving Berlin (1888-1989) has been called-by George Gershwin, among others-the greatest songwriter of the golden age of the American popular song. "Berlin has no place in American music," legendary composer Jerome Kern wrote; "he is American music." In a career that spanned an astonishing nine decades, Berlin wrote some fifteen hundred tunes, including...

New York City native and gifted pianist George Gershwin blossomed as an accompanist before his talent as a songwriter opened the way to Broadway, where he fashioned his own brand of American music. He composed a long run of musical comedies, many with his brother Ira as lyricist, but his aspirations reached beyond commercial success. A lifetime learner, Gershwin was able to appeal to listeners on both sides of the purported popular-classical divide....