单选题 In contrast to rock musicians, jazz players prefer to spend their time with their music and tend to measure success by that single standard, as a trombonist once put it: "A jazz musician would rather play a good concert for three people than a bad one for three thousand. "All the same, with their fellow players, jazzmen are collegiate and gregarious, exchange musical ideas in a spirit of mutual support or friendly competition, uniting in a collaborative effort to raise the level of their art. Even the greatest individuals have benefited from the talents of others.
In this legendary band, Duke Ellington provided star soloists with the ideal framework for their abilities. At the same time, they inspired him with the rich material of their personal idioms and phrases, which found their way into his compositions. In fact, Ellington was so adept at recycling what he heard that one of them described him as "not a composer but a compiler".
Ellington"s creative gifts were genuine and vast, but for much of his life he did receive crucial assistance not only from the involvement of his band, but from an actual day-in, day-out collaborator. In 1938 he met Billy Strayhorn, a young pianist-composer who was immediately brought into the ducal fold. Strayhorn became Ellington"s altered ego, contributing scores to the band but functioning even more importantly as a silent partner, completing pieces Ellington left unfinished, reworking others and acting as all-purpose composer—sometimes credited, more often not.
Ellington provided Strayhorn with financial security, artistic respect and the creative medium of the Ellington band. Throughout their partnership—which lasted until Strayhorn"s death in 1967—they never had a contract. Ellington simply paid all creative equal and friends, describing him as "my favorite human being", Strayhorn, a homosexual bon vivant, brilliant but self-effacing, let Ellington take both the glory and the strain of stardom, while he relieved some of the artistic pressure with a talent comparable to the leader"s own.
Though occasionally there was discord over the matter of official composer credit in their joint works, Ellington always publicly acknowledged his colleague"s contributions, and the many Strayhorn originals in Ellington"s book speak for themselves, including the band"s famous theme and greatest hit, "Take the Train". Thought the young man was adept at imitating the ducal style, his own unique voice, full of subtle impressionist colors, influenced a generation of later jazz composers.