All three shared their creative efforts with partners who provided special inspiration. George and Ira Gershwin were one of America’s premiere song-writing teams, and although each wrote songs with others, their finest works were those they produced together. Hoagy Car­michael’s particular inspiration when working with the words of Johnny Mercer is perhaps not as well-known nor as extensive, but the team wrote several fine songs together and collaborated on a Broadway musical. Duke Ellington’s instrumental legacy is prolific, but it was at manager Irving Mills’ insistence that words (often Mills’ own) were added to his melodies to make them more commercially marketable. But Ellington formed a special latter-day collaboration in the 1940s when he was joined by Billy Strayhorn. The combined contributions of the two men over the next thirty-some years are hard to separate, so closely did they work together.

But the output of each of the three composers is very distinctive, and this will provide the basis for the series’ presentations. Join us!