Jazz Articles about Billie Holiday

Lady Sings The Blues: The 50th Anniversary Edition

by Suzanne Lorge
February 10, 2007

Lady Sings The Blues: The 50th Anniversary Edition Billie Holiday with William Dufty Softcover; 231 pages ISBN: 978-0-7679-2386-6 Harlem Moon/Broadway Books 2006

In 1956 Billie Holiday sat down with ghostwriter William Dufty and recounted the story of her life. At times during the 224-page narrative Holiday seems compelled to justify the telling of her tale and issues rueful warnings about the dangers of drug use, as if her artistry were ...

Billie's Last Chorus

by Rob Mariani
November 20, 2006

She came on last at a concert that started at midnight at the Lowe's Sheraton on Seventh Avenue in The Village. It was one of those big, everybody-gets-to-play jam sessions they called concerts then, and it probably cost the promoters less than what Kenny G spends on hair gel these days. But there were at least a dozen top-flight groups including Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Chet Baker's quartet, Al Cohn and {{Zoot Sims with Conte Candoli. But Billie Holiday was ...

With Billie

by David Rickert
June 2, 2005

Julia Blackburn With Billie Pantheon Books ISBN: 0-375-40610-7 368 pages

In 1974 the Mark Twain Hotel renamed rooms 203 and 204 as the Billie Holiday Suite. It was decorated with period pieces from her stay in 1949, but it also featured framed newspaper reports from the drug bust that happened there as well. This story from the new book With Billie illuminates a familiar occurrence in Holiday's life: her drug use sometimes ...

Billie Holiday: The Sensitive & 1937-1952

by Joel Roberts
May 7, 2005

A search on Amazon reveals an absurd total of 498 Billie Holiday titles, including imports and out-of- print albums. That begs the question, “Do we really need another Holiday compilation? Two releases from Europe try to provide an affirmative answer.

Billie Holiday 1937-1952 Nocturne

The first collection, a two-disc set from the French Nocturne label covers the years 1937-1952 and seems geared primarily to jazz novices. The two discs are divided along the rather clumsy lines ...

Billie Holiday: Billie Holiday Live at Storyville

by AAJ Staff
January 21, 2003

Though born in Baltimore, Billie Holiday had strong ties to Massachusetts throughout her career. Her final performance, in fact, took place in Lowell, cradle of the industrial revolution. Long before that tragic set, however, Holiday recorded a series of shows at George Wein’s legendary Boston club Storyville. Though separated by two years from 1951-53, these discreet recordings capture “Lady Day" in prime emotive voice. From the first of Carl Drunkard’s watery piano drops which open “I Cover The Waterfront" to ...

Billie Holiday and Lester Young: A Musical Romance

by Charlie B. Dahan
August 4, 2002

The final offering in the recent series of Billie Holiday reissues from the outstanding and comprehensive Legacy boxset explores her work with Lester Young. What proves evident in this collection is that two brilliant and original artists can collaborate and enhance each other's performance to levels they could not reach on their own. In addition to familiar recordings by Holiday and Young such as “The Man I Love" and “Me, Myself, and I," this collection includes two ...

Billie Holiday: Lady Day Swings

by Charlie B. Dahan
August 4, 2002

Columbia’s Legacy label breaks up the recent all-encompassing Billie Holiday box set into three different themed collections. The Legacy label takes a look at Billie’s work with swing bands on “Lady Day Swings.” From her stellar “What A Little Moonlight Can Do" to “Them There Eyes," this collection flows effortlessly and makes an otherwise repetative colection do just what the title says, “Swing!"One exciting addition to this album is the 78 RPM version of “Getting Some ...