|
Various
Down Beat: Sixty Years of Jazz
Hal Leonard Corporation
|
|
|
Wynton Marsalis, Geoffrey Ward
Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life
Random House Trade Paperbacks
|
|
|
Geoffrey C. Ward, Ken Burns
Jazz: A History of America's Music
Knopf
|
|
|
David Margolick, Hilton Als
Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song
Harper Perennial
|
|
|
Billie Holiday, Jr., Arthur Herzog
God Bless the Child
Amistad
|
|
|
Carole Weatherford
Becoming Billie Holiday
Wordsong
|
|
|
Louis Armstrong, Danny Barker, Doc Cheatham, Vic Dickenson, Roy Eldridge
Billie Holiday - Ultimate Collection
Verve
DVD
|
|
|
(Includes Count Bassie, Billie Holiday, Coleman Hawkins, Jimmy Giuffre, Red Allen, Lester Young, and Milt Hilton)
The Sound of Jazz (1957)
DVD
|
|
|
Billie Holiday
The Life and Artistry of Lady Day
Music Video Distributors DVD 0265
DVD
|
|
|
Billie Holiday
Genius of Lady Day
Efor Films
DVD
|
|
|
Billie Holiday
The Lady Day's Life
Stars of Jazz
DVD
|
|
|
Arturo de Cordova, Marjorie Lord, Irene Rich, Louis Armstrong and His Band, Billie Holiday, Woody Herman, Woody Herman and His Orchestra
New Orleans
Kino Video
DVD
|
|
|
Joe Williams, Dave Brubeck, Sarah Vaughan, Thelonious Monk, Joshua Redman
Monterey Jazz Festival: 40 Legendary Years
Warner Home Video
DVD
|
|
|
Diana Ross, Billy Dee Williams
Lady Sings the Blues
Paramount
DVD Biographical film
|
|
|
Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Cab Calloway, Bing Crosby
Blue Melodies
Kino Video
VHS
|
|
|
Lester Young & Billie Holiday
Lester Young & Billie Holiday
Vidjazz
VHS
|
|
|
|
|
|
Billie Holiday
"Lady Day"
Eleanora Fagan
Eleonora De Viese
Eleanora Fagan Gough
Vocalist, Bandleader, Composer
(1915 - 1959)
|
|
|
|
|
Billie Holiday is considered the world’s greatest jazz singer, impossible to imitate but hugely influential. Born into poverty, she worked as a young girl in a brothel where she heard the recordings of Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong and developed her own singing style. With a small voice and limited range, she could put more emotion into a song and swing it harder with her phrasing than more gifted vocalists. Her early recordings can make you weep, and as she aged prematurely from heroin addiction, alcohol, and abusive relationships, her voice lost much of its elasticity but none of its emotion. Promoter John Hammond discovered and recorded her with Benny Goodman in 1933 and Teddy Wilson in 1935. After a brief stint with the Basie band in 1937, she toured the South with Artie Shaw’s all-white band in 1938, experiencing racism first-hand. Billie was a musician’s singer, attracting the finest instrumentalists, among them Lester Young whose style on saxophone much resembled Billie’s. They became lifelong friends—she called him “Pres,” short for “The President,” and he named her “Lady Day.” Billie introduced many songs, among them “Easy Living” (1937), “Fine and Mellow” (1939), “God Bless the Child,” (1941) and “Lover Man” (1944) with which she had a big hit. “Good Morning Heartache”(1945) and “Don’t Explain” (1946) are also inextricably linked to her. An entire book has been written about just one song, “Strange Fruit,” which Billie introduced at Caf? Society in 1939. Its gruesome lyrics by Abel Meeropol are the strongest indictment of racism ever penned. To perceive the magic that was Billie one need only watch her 1957 television appearance on The Sound of Jazz with Young, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Gerry Mulligan and Roy Eldridge. Her empathy with “Pres” on “Fine and Mellow” is sheer ecstasy.
- Sandra Burlingame |
|
|
|
|
|
