Billy Strayhorn was a black, gay genius who wrote and arranged much of the music played by the most famous band in jazz history: the Duke Ellington Orchestra. This moving and sensitive biography gives an irreplaceable picture of a vanished culture, and is a fitting tribute to a gifted and gentle man.

DAVID HAJDU is an editor at Entertainment Weekly and has written for the Village Voice, the New York Times and the New Yorker. Lush Life is currently being made into a movie.

"It is to Hajdu's credit that he has explored deep into those shadows and come back with a fascinating, well-written portrait and maybe the first ever jazz biography in which the subject is more interesting as a person than as a musician." - MILES KINGTON, Punch

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