Strayhorn Family endorses “Salute to Strayhorn” by Planet D Nonet

published December 05, 2016 | posted by detroit

The latest release from Detroit's Planet D Nonet is a tribute to one of the 20th Century's jazz and swing greats.

Detroit’s Planet D Nonet, a vibrant little-big band with an expansive repertoire, explores the full-breadth of the terrain on “A Salute to Strayhorn" (Detroit Music Factory). The CD includes Strayhorn masterpieces such as “Smada” and “A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing,” classic collaborations with Ellington like “Such Sweet Thunder” and a few more popular songs like “My Little Brown Book”, “Satin Doll” and “Just a-Sittin’ and a-Rockin’”.

Led together by drummer RJ Spangler and trumpeter James O’Donnell, the band plays this music with affection, balancing the spirit of the past with the pop of the present tense.

Composer-arranger Billy Strayhorn (1915-67) was a major figure in American music, best known during his life and for decades after his death as Duke Ellington’s collaborator. But in the last 20 years, thanks to pioneering biographical and musicological scholarship and recordings from a variety of sources, Strayhorn’s reputation has finally managed to escape Ellington’s shadow.

www.billystrayhorn.com