Billie Holiday

While it can't hope to compete with the impressive box sets of her work or even more specialized single-disc collections, 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Billie Holiday still manages to present a fair amount of her most definitive work from the '40s, even though it's only 12 tracks long. "Strange Fruit," "Lover Man," "Lady Sings the Blues," and "My Man" are all here, along with "Fine and Mellow," "'Tain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do," and "I Loves You Porgy." Not surprisingly since its track listing is so small, this collection is somewhat unfocused and definitely incomplete, but it offers a tantalizing taste of Billie Holiday's most musically fruitful period.

This remarkable DVD includes rare TV and film performances, an especially rare radio interview with Mike Wallace, an audio-only rehearsal session with pianist Jimmy Rowles, audio interviews with friends and fellow musicians, an interactive timeline and an evocative photo-document gallery featuring hundreds of dates and images, from rare photos to personal letters, plus Lady Day’s complete recording history for major record companies. Performance highlights include three from 1956's Stars Of Jax TV that are seen here for the first time since their original broadcast, Holiday’s first appearance on film, Duke Ellington’s "Saddest Tale," and the classic "Fine And Mellow" with Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, and jazz greats.

Companion Soundtrack to the James Erskine-directed documentary on the breathtaking talent of Billie Holiday. Billie Holiday featured with her band, The Sonhouse All Stars, performing her classic works including I Only Have Eyes For You, God Bless The Child, Strange Fruit and more. Billie features newly unearthed interviews from those who knew Holiday best — Charles Mingus, Tony Bennett, Sylvia Syms and Count Basie among them.

Billie Holiday - The Complete Billie Holiday On Verve 1945-1959 (1992) {10CD Set Verve–PolyGram 517 658-2}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 2.63 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 1.66 Gb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 288 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1945-59, 1992 Verve / PolyGram | 517 658-2
Jazz / Vocal Jazz / Swing / Classic Female Blues / Traditional Pop

This is a rather incredible collection: ten CDs enclosed in a tight black box that includes every one of the recordings Verve owns of Billie Holiday, not only the many studio recordings of 1952-57 (which feature Lady Day joined by such jazz all-stars as trumpeters Charlie Shavers and Harry "Sweets" Edison, altoist Benny Carter, and the tenors of Flip Phillips, Paul Quinichette and Ben Webster). Also included are prime performances at Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts in 1945-1947, an enjoyable European gig from 1954, her "comeback" Carnegie Hall concert of 1956, Holiday's rather sad final studio album from 1959, and even lengthy tapes from two informal rehearsals. It's a perfect purchase for the true Billie Holiday fanatic.