Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life

The Film

As Duke Ellington's co-composer, arranger, and right-hand man, Billy Strayhorn wrote some of the greatest American music of the 20th century. But as a gay man in the ’40s and ’50s, Strayhorn had to lead a discreet existence, while Ellington played to thunderous applause on center stage. Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life tells the story of the unheralded man who changed jazz and popular music forever, maintaining artistic and personal integrity, while challenging prejudice along the way.