All this talk recently about Billie has got me reminiscing. When I was in high school in L.A. (it was either 1957 or 1958, about 1 year before Billie died), my brother (who was in college at the time) and I went into Hollywood to a tiny club (I don't even remember the name of it) on a weeknight to see Billie Holliday. There were only two other people there besides us, and we sat about 6 feet from where Billie was singing. She did three sets. Each set would start out great, then she would get noticeably tired and nervous. At the end of the set she'd go back stage, and when she emerged her eyes were glazed and dilated, and it was clear what she had been doing backstage. Her voice was cracking more than usual that night. But you know what? Even then, even in her decline, she was fabulous. She had a way of phrasing, of holding back that last few words until the adjacent notes had passed and it would seem there was no way she could get in the phrase before the next notes emerged, but she would squeeze them in just under the wire, and yet with such seemingly laid-back ease. What soul, what timing, what emotion. I'll never forget that night almost forty years ago.

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