Queer Arrangements

The legacy of Black queer composer, arranger and pianist Billy Strayhorn (1915–1967) hovers at the edge of canonical jazz narratives. Queer Arrangements explores the ways in which Strayhorn's identity as an openly gay Black jazz musician shaped his career, including the creative roles he could assume and the dynamics between himself and his collaborators, most famously Duke Ellington, but also iconic singers such as Lena Horne and Ella Fitzgerald. This new portrait of Strayhorn combines critical, historically-situated close readings of selected recordings, scores and performances with biography and cultural theory to pursue alternative interpretive jazz possibilities, Black queer historical routes and sounds. By looking at jazz history through the instrument(s) of Strayhorn's queer arrangements, this book sheds new light on his music and on jazz collaboration at midcentury.

"Lisa Barg's Queer Arrangements: Billy Strayhorn and Midcentury Jazz Collaboration (Wesleyan University Press, 2023) represents LGBTQ+ scholarship at it's finest. Barg takes us on a kaleidoscopic journey through the life and music of Billy Strayhorn, using a creative and playful approach to the archive. This book offers a beautifully written musical biography of an out, black, queer musician and a titan of jazz. It is a gift to multiple disciplines and must-read for pop music scholars."--Honorable Mention for the 2025 Woody Guthrie Award (IASPM)

"Queer Arrangements brings fascinating archival and biographical details about Strayhorn's life into dialogue with queer studies by making visible connections that... enlarges our understating of the immeasurably complex worlds in which jazz musicians move."--Jennifer Messelink

"This is a groundbreaking contribution to jazz studies. Lisa Barg brilliantly unpacks how queerness plays out in the music of Billy Strayhorn, one of jazz's most talented composer-arrangers."--Walter van de Leur, author of Something to Live For: The Music of Billy Strayhorn

"This book challenges the manner in which historical frameworks have been constructed and have promoted a personal and creative hierarchy in jazz's historiography. Most importantly it continues the much-needed work of detangling Billy Strayhorn's musical legacy from that of the Ellington organization by making the invisible aspects of his life visible, and the silent facets of his music heard."--Tammy L. Kernodle, author of Soul on Soul: The Life and Music of Mary Lou Williams

"This remarkable, wide-ranging, musical, and intellectually stimulating book offers fascinating new insights on a composer-arranger whom his more famous collaborator Duke Ellington described as 'seldom seen, but always heard.' Lisa Barg's evocative, deeply researched study, invites us to see Billy Strayhorn--and the musical worlds in which he collaborated--more clearly than ever."--Jeffrey Magee, author of The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz

"Lisa Barg deftly and elegantly applies critical analysis of sexuality and queerness to reveal Billy Strayhorn as not only a brilliant pianist and composer, but also a vocal arranger committed to collaborative creativity, a vital, yet woefully understudied aspect of jazz music and culture."--Nichole Rustin-Paschal, author of The Kind of Man I Am: Jazzmasculinity and the World of Charles Mingus, Jr.

LISA BARG (Montreal, QC) is Associate Professor of Music History and Musicology at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies. She is currently serving as Co-editor-In-Chief of Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture.

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