Billie Holiday

[Satchmo Distel]

I was in a restaurant last night that played some old French songs and the vocalist had clearly absorbed Billie's Teddy Wilson era style, swinging behind the beat with a lot of implied irony.

But then a huge number of singers are falsely compared to her while sounding nothing like her.

So I am wondering where she stands today. Was she just of her time or is she timeless? Do you skip some of her phases, like I skip the Decca strings recordings except Lover Man? Is she only effective on quality songs rather than the cast-offs Colombia often gave her? Is she as emotionally engaging as Ella Fitzgerald or Aretha Franklin, despite a much narrower octave range?

[diggedy derek]

She is surely in the top five innovators in all of jazz. You will barely find a horn player who does not acknowledge her as an influence, especially in terms of her phrasing and timing, or who does not like her. For me, Ella Fitzgerald isn't even on the same page.

[MsD]

I'm a big BH fan, but funnily enough am going through an Ella phase this week (listened to Billie and it made me too sad). Ella's version of Loverman comes nowhere close, though, it's not her kind of song, whereas she does A Foggy Day in London Town or Dream a Little Dream of Me with Louis Armstrong brilliantly. Just two different kinds of singers.

Back to Billie, timeless, powerful, painful, raw. Her singing Strange Fruit is almost unbearable. I adore her but just can't listen most of the time. In the 80s, when jazz was trendy, sometimes people would have her on in the background and that seemed wrong.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Back to Billie, timeless, powerful, painful, raw. Her singing Strange Fruit is almost unbearable.

Utterly.

I've never been a huge EF fan. For the most part I find her vocals clever but somewhat mannered and technical. Billie OTOH has a voice that can veer from silky to raw within a couple of notes. There's a depth there that's emotionally bottomless.

Among contemporaries Teddy Grace is closer to Billie Holliday than Ella Fitzgerald. Though she still lacks the pure soul of Lady Day.

[Nefertiti2]

The Day Lady Died
by Frank O'Hara

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don’t know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing

[MsD]

I picked a biography, Wishing on the Moon by Donald Clarke, off the shelf last night as I've not got round to reading it. Read the first few pages in bed - it's very political, talking about slavery.

[Satchmo Distel]

I strongly recommend 'With Billie' by Julia Blackburn, which made Clarke's book redundant.

[MsD]

Well, Clarke's is the only one I have in the house, so I'll read that first. It does have good reviews, and was a gift.

[Satchmo Distel]

Fair enough. Clarke was the first researcher to verify, using court records, that she was raped at the age of 10 by a neighbour. However, Blackburn implies that he embellishes the interview material drawn from Linda Kuehl's tapes. I will be keen to read how you feel after you've read the book.

[Satchmo Distel]

[Satchmo Distel]

First two photos above are from the 'Strange Fruit' recording session, 20.4.39. Not sure about the 3rd photo

[Amor de Cosmos]

First two photos above are from the 'Strange Fruit' recording session, 20.4.39.

Wow! Someone was there with a camera. That is seriously cool.

[Satchmo Distel]

Yes, it was the first recording session of a new company, Commodore, and I think that was the reason for the camera.

[MsD]

Stunning pictures. I haven't got much further with the book, election stuff in the way.

[Satchmo Distel]

Details for the 3rd photo

https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/n...hoto/984488928

[Satchmo Distel]

1) Her live recording of Duke Ellington's 'Do Nothin' Til You Hear From Me' from 26/1/44 for a V-Disc* is stunning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ays...index=230&t=0s

*She was unable to do any studio recording at the time due to a Musicians' Union strike.

2) 'If You Were Mine', 1935, she was only around 20 when she recorded this but she sings it like she has already lived it many times:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYdw...dmuMM&index=13

[Satchmo Distel]

"I'm Pulling Through" (1940) - I had never heard this before today but it's an amazing work of art. A complex set of lyrics that reads perfectly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOGY-pWj-ro

1940-1941 is her absolute peak IMHO. Complex readings of lyrics but still with perfect tone and timing.

[Satchmo Distel]

Billie photographed by Bob Willoughby in 1952. I hadn't seen these until today and I think they are fantastic.

[diggedy derek]

Fantastic.