Around 3:00 A.M. Saturday night, a wonderful documentary came on PBS. The name of the documentary was “Billy Strayhorn : Lush Life”. What is it you say? 3:00 A.M.? That’s right. Thank God TIVO knows me so well. Otherwise, I never would have known about this wonderful piece. If you haven’t seen it and you are a fan of jazz, especially of Ellington, then please try to find it. You will not be disappointed.

Billy Strayhorn was a genius. There is no reason to mince words here. Plain and simple, the man was born to compose and play music. His gift was his ability to assemble notes and chords into infinite magic. His curse, it seems, was another genius named Duke Ellington.

Sure, Ellington provided the platform that would allow Strayhorn to showcase such incomparable masterpieces as “Lotus Blossom”, “Lush Life”, “Chelsea Bridge”, “Daydream”, “Take The A Train”, ad infinitum. But as time creeps on, one begins to wonder if the day will come when Strayhorn is heralded more as a composer than Ellington. Perhaps not. Ellington’s songbook is so vast and filled with so many remarkable gems. I don’t want to take away from Ellington at all. But this was a world in which an African-American genius was not lauded and begrudgingly recognized. Two geniuses together? Not possible. You add on top of that the fact that Strayhorn was gay and you can see the daunting steepness of the hill he had to climb.

Yes, Strayhorn’s genius was eclipsed by the all-encompassing shadow of the equally brilliant Ellington. But perhaps one day — and the day started with this wonderful documentary — the name Strayhorn will not require another name to be mentioned for people to truly recognize who he is.