Lotus Blossom - Billy Strayhorn; arr. Alec Wyton

Lotus - Billy Strayhorn (1915-1967)
arr. Alec Wyton (1921-2007)
Dr. Homer A Ferguson III, organist
Live in recital June 8, 2022
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Greenville, NC
C.B Fisk Opus 126
William Thomas Strayhorn was a jazz pianist and composer, best known for his three-decade association with the Duke Ellington band, which he joined in 1939. His most popular composition was his tune ‘Take the A Train.’ Ellington said that “…Billy Strayhorn was my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brainwaves in his head, and his in mine.” After Strayhorn died in 1967, Ellington would often close his concerts with a solo piano performance of the instrumental Lotus Blossom. The song was originally known as “Hominy,” and then “All Roads Lead Back to You,” and, in 1947, Johnny Hodges recorded it as “Charlotte Russe,” presumably named for the popular dessert of the 1930s and 1940s. While Strayhorn was a pianist in Duke Ellington’s band, Duke could never figure out how Strayhorn wrote the song. Jazz composer and pianist Don Shirley said, “Of all the things that Billy wrote, ‘Lotus Blossom’ was such an enigma for Duke. It got to a point that I began to realize that it bothered him - in the good sense - trying to figure, how did he do that? It’s that kind of thing. But Billy had that kind of genius.”
Ellington died in 1974 and his funeral was held in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Duke’s sister, Ruth Dorothea Ellington, attended services regularly there and asked that then organist Alec Wyton improvise on ‘Lotus Blossom’ during communion. Years later, Ruth requested that Wyton transcribe and publish his improvisation. In a letter to Dr. Wyton in 1986, she wrote: “Your arrangement of Billy Strayhorn’s ‘Lotus’ is beautiful. One of my fondest memories of ‘Lotus’ was during the sixties, just after Billy’s death. During his Rainbow Grill engagements, my brother, Duke Ellington, would play ‘Lotus’ as a little private prelude to each show. He would go silently to the piano, while the stage was dark, and softly play it. It was like a whispered tribute to Billy - perhaps even a little prayer for his soul - knowing that God was listening. As you know, Alec, Duke titled one of his sacred songs, “Every Man Prays in His Own Language (and there is no language that God does not understand).”

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Where does one get the music for this?

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michaelsmusicservice.com/music/Strayhorn-Wyton.Lotus.html