Billie Holiday God Bless The Child

The first popular jazz singer to move audiences with the intense, personal feeling of classic blues, Billie Holiday changed the art of American pop vocals forever. More than a half-century after her death, it's difficult to believe that prior to her emergence, jazz and pop singers were tied to the Tin Pan Alley tradition and rarely personalized their songs; only blues singers like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey actually gave the impression they had lived through what they were singing.

Offering a viable alternative to Columbia's popular Quintessential series of Billie Holiday's 1933-1942 sides, Classics' multi-disc survey of the singer's early material features a handful of additional tracks per disc and oftentimes better sound. This is not to say the Columbia titles are to be overlooked, but if you come across one of these fine imports, don't hesitate in picking it up. This mix of Holiday's 1940-1942 material is especially recommended; the songs mark the end of her Columbia stay, showing the first signs of a voice mellowed and toughened by a life of nightlife dissipation. In addition to such classics as "God Bless the Child" and "Solitude," Holiday delivers often overlooked highlights like "Jim" and "I Cover the Waterfront"…

Jose James - Yesterday I Had The Blues: The Music Of Billie Holiday (2015) {Blue Note}
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Jazz / Vocal Jazz / Modern Jazz Vocals / Modern Jazz

José James has a reputation as a 21st century musical renaissance man. He's issued a remarkably consistent series of records that blur the lines between soul, funk, dance music, jazz, and rock. In addition, in 2010, he released For All We Know, a fine collection of jazz standards in duet with Belgian pianist Jef Neve. It is from this place that James releases Yesterday I Had the Blues: The Music of Billie Holiday. In his liner essay he cites Holiday as the artist who made him aspire to be a jazz singer. Accompanied by pianist Jason Moran, drummer Eric Harland, and bassist John Patitucci, James delivers a program of beauty and restraint for the centennial of her birth. James, who has the ability to accomplish startling vocalese and scat techniques, brings none it.

In conjunction with the release of Ken Burns' ten-part, 19-hour epic PBS documentary Jazz, Columbia issued 22 single-disc compilations devoted to jazz's most significant artists, as well as a five-disc historical summary. Since the individual compilations attempt to present balanced overviews of each artist's career, tracks from multiple labels have thankfully been licensed where appropriate. That's especially nice in the case of Billie Holiday, who recorded excellent and essential work for Columbia, Commodore, Decca, and Verve. Since her signature numbers were also spread out over those labels, and since Ken Burns Jazz includes pretty much all of her best-known songs, this makes an excellent introduction and an even better single-disc retrospective.

Billie Holiday - The Complete Commodore & Decca Masters (2018) {3CD Set, Verve Reissues, Digital Issue rec 1939-1950}
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© 1939-50, 2018 Commodore / Decca / Verve Reissues / UMG
Jazz / Vocal Jazz / Swing / Torch Songs

Columbia balked at recording Strange Fruit , fearing reprisals from Southern distributors. So Billie turned to producer Milt Gabler at Commodore, and a four-song one-off flowered into more than a decade of work together. Milt went to Decca soon after, and so did Billie; here, for the first time in one place, are all 50 Milt Gabler-produced Billie Holiday masters, plus two others from her Decca era: Strange Fruit; Yesterdays; Fine and Mellow; My Old Flame; Lover Man; Billie's Blues; I Loves You Porgy; God Bless the Child; Now or Never; You're My Thrill; I'll Get By; My Man 52 breathtakingly beautiful performances!

Billie Holiday is heard at her absolute best on this attractive two-CD set. During her period on Decca, Lady Day was accompanied by strings (for the first time), large studio orchestras, and even background vocalists, so jazz solos from her sidemen are few. But her voice was at its strongest during the 1940s (even with her personal problems) and to hear all 50 of her Decca performances (including alternate takes and even some studio chatter) is a real joy. Among the high points of this essential set are her original versions of "Lover Man" (Holiday's biggest selling record), "Don't Explain," "Good Morning Heartache," "'Tain't Nobody's Business if I Do," "Now or Never," "Crazy He Calls Me," and remakes of "Them There Eyes" and "God Bless the Child."

With her spirit shining through on every recording, Holiday's technical expertise also excelled in comparison to the great majority of her contemporaries. Often bored by the tired old Tin Pan Alley songs she was forced to record early in her career, Holiday fooled around with the beat and the melody, phrasing behind the beat and often rejuvenating the standard melody with harmonies borrowed from her favorite horn players, Armstrong and Lester Young. (She often said she tried to sing like a horn.) Her notorious private life — a series of abusive relationships, substance addictions, and periods of depression — undoubtedly assisted her legendary status, but Holiday's best performances ("Lover Man," "Don't Explain," "Strange Fruit," her own composition "God Bless the Child") remain among the most sensitive and accomplished vocal performances ever recorded. More than technical ability, more than purity of voice, what made Billie Holiday one of the best vocalists of the century — easily the equal of Ella Fitzgerald or Frank Sinatra — was her relentlessly individualist temperament, a quality that colored every one of her endlessly nuanced performances.

John Bush, AMG.