Billie Sunday

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"…

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. Billie Holiday's highly stylized reading of this blues tradition revolutionized traditional pop, ripping the decades-long tradition of song plugging in two by refusing to compromise her artistry for either the song or the band…

It's fitting that singer Billie Holiday began the most celebrated part of her career with Columbia in 1933, when the country was in the throes of the depression, and ended it in 1942, when the world was gripped by war. Her anguished delivery fit in perfectly with the times. As she projected the torments of her life through music, she gave us an escape from our own troubles, by reminding us of how bad life could get. Regardless, Holiday's sublime Columbia recordings, which originally appeared on the Brunswick, Vocalion and Okeh labels, are among the true treasures of jazz. The complete recordings were released a few years ago in a mammoth box set. This four CD collection pares the material down considerably, although the producers have not just taken the cream of the crop…

Abbey Lincoln - Abbey sings Billie (1987) {2CD Set, Enja 9134-2 rel 2001}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 488 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 234 Mb
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© 1987, 2001 Enja Records | Enja CD 9134-2
Jazz / Vocal Jazz / Standards / Post Bop

Abbey Lincoln, a great lady of the vocal Jazz whose heroe and teacher was Billie Holiday and just like her always means the lyrics he sings. This very good record is the joined reedition of the two sessions dedicated to Holiday V1 and V2 and although Abbey really never copycatted her teacher Lady Day, besides having their own style and sound, the intensity, the feeling that she puts in these performances resembles Holiday's way of singing during her last phase. In these Cd' s Lincoln offers fresh rendition of standards, joined by the good Tenor Sax Harold Vick, who passed away a short time after this recording, pianist James Weidman, Tarik Shah playing bass and the well-known drummer Mark Johnson.