Billie Holiday
Here at the Verve Music Group we are fortunate and honored to have so many of Billie Holiday's classic recordings in our jazz catalog. Billie's recordings from Commodore, Decca, and Verve all reside here. Billie Holiday (1915-59) was one of jazz’s greatest song stylists. Her ability to make a song her own by imposing her personality on it in an era when most singers remained faithful to the composer’s lead sheet anticipated many vocalists as stylistically diverse as Frank Sinatra and, in a later generation, Joni Mitchell. She was born Eleanora Harris in Philadelphia to teenage parents. Her mother, Sadie Harris, raised her in Baltimore while working as a domestic servant. Her father, Clarence Holiday, was a professional musician who visited her on occasion but wasn’t around much while she was growing up. She was a problem child with constant truancy problems, and at the age of nine she was sent to a Catholic home for wayward girls for several months. When she was in her middle teens she moved to New York. She changed her name to Billie Holiday in the late 1920s when she was working one of her first club jobs. Louis Armstrong was an inevitable early influence, as was Bessie Smith, but by the time she first recorded she sounded like no one else. In 1933 John Hammond, a wealthy jazz lover with record company connections, produced her first record date. By 1935 she had become a regular in a series of informal recording sessions organized by Hammond and pianist Teddy Wilson, using leading players and singers from whatever big bands were in town. By the following year she had begun to record under her own name as well. She did brief stints with the big bands of Count Basie (1938) and Artie Shaw (1939), but band singing didn’t suit her temperament. More important to her career development was an engagement in 1939 at Café Society, one of the first integrated nightclubs in New York. She attracted a sophisticated crowd that was affluent and politically liberal — the perfect setting for her to introduce "Strange Fruit", an anti-lynching song a generation ahead of the protest hits of the Vietnam War era. It became a signature piece for her, but it also signified a change in artistic direction in another way. On her earlier recordings, Holiday had been used much like a horn, taking her solo after the opening instrumental chorus. Now the instrumental and vocal roles were reversed, with an occasional brief horn or piano solo in the middle of her vocal performance. In 1943 Holiday signed a contract with Decca Records, The resulting recordings were more pop-oriented then her previous output, surrounding her with large string-laden orchestras. This period marked her peak as a vocalist from a commercial point of view. Unfortunately, her drug use and unstable love relationships were beginning to undermine her career, stunting her chances of broad acceptance. And many jazz aficionados longed for her to return to making the type of jazz-oriented records she had made in the 1930s. In 1952 Holiday began a five-year association on record with jazz impresario Norman Granz, who put her in the studio with compatible musicians, often from his Jazz at the Philharmonic troupe. By now her voice was showing wear and tear from the years of hard living, but her true talent had always had been in the filtering of a song through her personality and experience, and plenty of both show through in the series of recordings she made for Granz. In early 1958 Holiday recorded the album Lady in Satin with Ray Ellis’s orchestra. Her voice was almost completely gone, but expressively the album is one of her finest. Holiday’s health continued to decline, and in the spring of 1959 she was taken to a hospital for treatment of cirrhosis of the liver and malnutrition. Five days before her death she was arrested in her hospital bed on narcotics charges. The facts of Billie Holiday’s life are tragic to say the least, but in her recordings she made art out of that life. Phil Bailey Excerpted from Ken Burns’ Jazz: The Definitive Billie Holiday (Verve) (Photo credits: The Verve Music Group)
ALBUM
Una raccolta completa degli album di Billie Holiday, dalle prime produzioni ai successi più recenti.
Billie Holiday, The Sonhouse All Stars
BILLIE: The Original Soundtrack
Billie Holiday
Recital
96kHz/24-bitBillie Holiday
Music For Torching
192kHz/24-bitBillie Holiday
Billie Holiday
96kHz/24-bitBillie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald & Billie Holiday At Newport
192kHz/24-bit
Billie Holiday
The Essential Billie Holiday: Carnegie Hall Concert Recorded Live
192kHz/24-bit/Reissue
Billie Holiday
Songs For Distingué Lovers
192kHz/24-bit/Reissue
Billie Holiday
Solitude
192kHz/24-bit/ReissueBillie Holiday
Gold
Billie Holiday
Songs For Distingue Lovers
Billie Holiday
Body And Soul
Billie Holiday
Ultimate Billie Holiday
Reissue
Billie Holiday
An Evening With Billie Holiday
Reissue
Billie Holiday
Priceless Jazz 2 : Billie Holiday
Part 2 / Reissue
Billie Holiday
Jazz Masters 47: Billie Holiday Sings Standards
Reissue
Billie Holiday
The Definitive Collection
Reissue
Billie Holiday
Billy Remembers Billie
Reissue
Billie Holiday
Jazz At The Philharmonic
Expanded Edition / Reissue
Billie Holiday
The Complete Commodore/Decca Masters
Billie Holiday
Lady Sings The Blues
Reissue
Billie Holiday
Lover Man
Reissue
Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald
At Newport
Reissue
Billie Holiday
All Or Nothing At All
Reissue
Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Carmen McRae
At Newport
Expanded Edition / Reissue
Billie Holiday
The Lady Sings
ReissueBillie Holiday
The Blues Are Brewin'
Reissue
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday For Lovers
Reissue
Billie Holiday
The Billie Holiday Songbook
Reissue
Billie Holiday
Lady In Autumn: The Best Of The Verve Years
Reissue
Billie Holiday
The Commodore Master Takes
Reissue
Billie Holiday
Diva
Replacement UPC
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday's Greatest Hits
Reissue
Billie Holiday
Billie's Best
Reissue
Billie Holiday
The Complete Commodore Recordings
Billie Holiday
The Complete Decca Recordings
Billie Holiday
The Complete Billie Holiday On Verve 1945 - 1959
Billie Holiday
Jazz 'Round Midnight
Reissue
Billie Holiday
Singin' The Blues
ReissueBillie Holiday
The Decca Singles Vol. 1: 1945-1949
Billie Holiday
The Decca Singles Vol. 2: 1949-1951
Billie Holiday
5 Original Albums
Billie Holiday, Ray Ellis And His Orchestra
Billie Holiday
MFiTBillie Holiday
Velvet Mood
MFiTBillie Holiday
At Jazz At The Philharmonic
MFiTBillie Holiday
Stay With Me
MFiT
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday: Verve Ultimate Cool
Billie Holiday
Summertime - The Best Of...
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday: Ken Burns's Jazz
Billie Holiday
First Issue: The Great American Songbook
Billie Holiday
My Greatest Songs
Billie Holiday
Billie's Blues
SINGOLI
I singoli più rappresentativi di Billie Holiday, tra successi storici e nuove uscite.
Billie Holiday
Crazy He Calls Me
Pseudo VideoBillie Holiday
Don't Explain
Pseudo VideoBillie Holiday
I'll Look Around
Pseudo VideoBillie Holiday
I'll Be Seeing You
Pseudo VideoBillie Holiday
Blue Moon
Pseudo VideoBillie Holiday
Moonglow
Pseudo VideoBillie Holiday
Solitude
Pseudo VideoBillie Holiday
Lover Man
Pseudo VideoBillie Holiday
My Man
Pseudo VideoBillie Holiday
God Bless The Child
Pseudo VideoBillie Holiday
Lady Sings The Blues
Pseudo VideoBillie Holiday, Somni
I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm
Somni RemixBillie Holiday
I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm
Somni RemixBIOGRAFIA
Here at the Verve Music Group we are fortunate and honored to have so many of Billie Holiday's classic recordings in our jazz catalog. Billie's recordings from Commodore, Decca, and Verve all reside here.
Billie Holiday (1915-59) was one of jazz’s greatest song stylists. Her ability to make a song her own by imposing her personality on it in an era when most singers remained faithful to
the composer’s lead sheet anticipated many vocalists as stylistically diverse as Frank Sinatra and, in a later generation, Joni Mitchell.
She was born Eleanora Harris in Philadelphia to teenage parents. Her mother, Sadie Harris,
raised her in Baltimore while working as a domestic servant. Her father, Clarence Holiday,
was a professional musician who visited her on occasion but wasn’t around much while she was growing up. She was a problem child with constant truancy problems, and at the age
of nine she was sent to a Catholic home for wayward girls for several months.
When she was in her middle teens she moved to New York. She changed her name to
Billie Holiday in the late 1920s when she was working one of her first club jobs.
Louis Armstrong was an inevitable early influence, as was Bessie Smith, but by the
time she first recorded she sounded like no one else.
In 1933 John Hammond, a wealthy jazz lover with record company connections,
produced her first record date. By 1935 she had become a regular in a series of informal
recording sessions organized by Hammond and pianist Teddy Wilson, using leading
players and singers from whatever big bands were in town. By the following year she
had begun to record under her own name as well. She did brief stints with the big bands
of Count Basie (1938) and Artie Shaw (1939), but band singing didn’t suit her temperament.
More important to her career development was an engagement in 1939 at Café Society,
one of the first integrated nightclubs in New York. She attracted a sophisticated crowd
that was affluent and politically liberal — the perfect setting for her to introduce "Strange Fruit", an anti-lynching song a generation ahead of the protest hits of the Vietnam War
era. It became a signature piece for her, but it also signified a change in artistic direction
in another way. On her earlier recordings, Holiday had been used much like a horn, taking her solo after the opening instrumental chorus. Now the instrumental and vocal roles were reversed, with an occasional brief horn or piano solo in the middle of her vocal performance.
In 1943 Holiday signed a contract with Decca Records, The resulting recordings were more
pop-oriented then her previous output, surrounding her with large string-laden orchestras.
This period marked her peak as a vocalist from a commercial point of view. Unfortunately, her drug use and unstable love relationships were beginning to undermine her career, stunting her chances of broad acceptance. And many jazz aficionados longed for her to return to making the type of jazz-oriented records she had made in the 1930s.
In 1952 Holiday began a five-year association on record with jazz impresario Norman Granz, who put her in the studio with compatible musicians, often from his Jazz at the Philharmonic troupe. By now her voice was showing wear and tear from the years of hard living, but her true talent had always had been in the filtering of a song through her personality and experience, and plenty of both show through in the series of recordings she made for Granz.
In early 1958 Holiday recorded the album Lady in Satin with Ray Ellis’s orchestra. Her
voice was almost completely gone, but expressively the album is one of her finest. Holiday’s
health continued to decline, and in the spring of 1959 she was taken to a hospital for treatment of cirrhosis of the liver and malnutrition. Five days before her death she was arrested in her hospital bed on narcotics charges.
The facts of Billie Holiday’s life are tragic to say the least, but in her recordings she
made art out of that life.
Phil Bailey
Excerpted from Ken Burns’ Jazz: The Definitive Billie Holiday (Verve)
(Photo credits: The Verve Music Group)
ULTIME NEWS
27.05.2015
CENTO ANNI DI BILLIE HOLIDAY
Nel centenario della nascita di Billie Holiday, ricordiamo il box di 10 CD con l’integrale delle registrazioni Verve della grande (forse la più grande) jazz vocalist, pietra miliare della discografia jazz, ripubblicato da Univeral Music Italia. Forse è inutile ribadire che le registrazioni qui contenute rappresentano la fase più matura – dalla fine della guerra alla prematura scomparsa – di Billie Holiday, e comprendono sia le registrazioni in studio che quelle realizzate dal vivo (a partire dalle celebratissime partecipazioni ai concerti di Jazz at the Philharmonic, che segnarono la nascita dell’etichetta Verve di Norman Granz). Così come da dare per scontato che nelle registrazioni al fianco di “Lady Day” compaiono i grandi protagonisti di quei decenni magici: a partire dall’amico del cuore Lester Young per continuare con Wardell Gray, Charlie Shavers, Oscar Peterson, Barney Kessel, Ray Brown, Ben Webster, Harry Edison, Jimmy Rowles, Benny Carter, Buddy DeFranco… Il box contiene un libretto con tutte le indicazioni discografiche
17.07.2013
