Quite so. And for a very authoritative account of Billy Strayhorn's life, one should read David Hadju's biography "Lush Life." Billy's and Duke's relationship was rather complex. By this point in their relationship (c 1961) Duke and Billy were working together again, after a brief "cooling" period in the early to mid 50s. Duke agreed to give Billy more credit for his work, etc. Why Billy's name does not appear in the credits of this film, then, is bizarre. There could be two reasons. One, at this point, I believe, Duke had hired a new publicist who took great pains to promote the Maestro, and took similarly great pains at erasing any of Billy's contributions to the group. The publicist was apparently very homophobic. Two, according to Hadju, Duke truly did launch himself and dedicate himself to the writing of the score while Billy spent most of his time staying out late, drinking, and catching up with old friends. Indeed, one of his former boyfriends, Aaron Bridgers, appears in the film as the pianist (Bridgers was in fact a pianist who moved to Paris in the 40s). Accounts of Billy's state during the production of Paris Blues vary. Some say that Billy was happy and enjoying his time in Paris. Others say that he was very depressed and drowning his sorrows. It should also be noted that by 1961, Billy was probably already becoming quite ill from cancer, though it would not be diagnosed for another couple of years.
So this is just a long way of explaining why Billy may not have contributed much to this score after all -- though his name should have still appeared in the credits for the work he did do.
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