We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Lush Life

from Now at Last by Ellen Warkentine

/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $1 USD  or more

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

about

In 1933 a teenage Billy Strayhorn started work on “Lush Life.” He would fine-tune his composition over the next few years and in 1938, at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, Strayhorn played the piano and sang for Duke Ellington. Ellington’s son, Mercer, would later recall that “Lush Life” and “Something to Live For” were responsible for Ellington hiring Strayhorn in early 1939. It would mark the beginning of their legendary collaboration.

More on Billy Strayhorn

In 1939 “Lush Life” could boast lyrics but no title. Strayhorn frequently played the song at parties but it was a pet project and was not intended for publication. On November 13, 1948, however, Billy Strayhorn (piano) with vocalist Kay Davis performed “Lush Life” in the last of seven Ellington Carnegie Hall concerts. The difficult-to-find Duke Ellington-Carnegie Hall, November 13, 1948, released in 1991 on Vintage Jazz Classics, contains the first documented performance of “Lush Life” with Billy Strayhorn on piano and Kay Davis singing.

Recording by other artists began soon after that. An initial Nat “King” Cole B-side, rearranged in a Latin impressionistic style, infuriated Strayhorn. To make matters worse, Cole’s misreading of the lyrics irked the usually unflappable Strayhorn and resulted in an angry phone call.

Strayhorn recorded “Lush Life” on piano without vocal (except for a wordless chorus behind him) in 1961 (The Peaceful Side, 1996 Capitol Records). He recorded solo piano and vocal in 1965 (Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn, 1992, Red Baron). Ellington himself never played “Lush Life.”

Additional reading on Billy Strayhorn and the origin of “Lush Life” may be found in David Hajdu’s Strayhorn biography Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn.

“Lush Life” was also the title for a 1993 made-for-TV film starring Jeff Goldblum, Forest Whitaker, and Kathy Baker.

Source: jazzstandards.com

lyrics

I used to visit all the very gay places
Those come what may places
Where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life
To get the feel of life
From jazz and cocktails.
The girls I knew had sad and sullen gray faces
With distant gay traces
That used to be there you could see where they'd been washed away
By too many through the day
Twelve o'clock tales.
Then you came along with your siren of song
To tempt me to madness!
I thought for a while that your poignant smile was tinged with the sadness
Of a great love for me.
Ah yes! I was wrong
Again,
I was wrong.
Life is lonely again,
And only last year everything seemed so sure.
Now life is awful again,
A troughful of hearts could only be a bore.
A week in Paris will ease the bite of it,
All I care is to smile in spite of it.
I'll forget you, I will
While yet you are still burning inside my brain.
Romance is mush,
Stifling those who strive.
I'll live a lush life in some small dive
And there I'll be, while I rot
With the rest of those whose lives are lonely, too

credits

from Now at Last, released March 2, 2022
Ellen Warkentine - acoustic and electric pianos, vocals

Anthony Shadduck - double bass
Danny Frankel - drums & percussion
Isaiah Morfin - alto saxophone
Joe Cunningham - tenor saxophone

Produced and mixed by Chris Schlarb
at BIG EGO, Long Beach, CA.

Engineered by Devin O'Brien

Mastered by JJ Golden

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Ellen Warkentine image

Ellen Warkentine Los Angeles, California

Ellen Warkentine is a theatrical multi-instrumentalist composer and performing artist based in New York/Los Angeles.

Her melodic work references avant-pop, early jazz, and vaudeville; her influences include Kurt Weill, Bjork, and Stephin Merritt.

She is a long-time collaborator with the award-winning Four Larks Theatre, and co-creator of the absurd “fauxpera” LOLPERA. ... more

contact / help

Contact Ellen Warkentine

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this track or account

If you like Ellen Warkentine, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Featured guests are the golden-voiced Baby Rose and psyche soulsters Brainstory.
listen now