Thursday, April 07, 2005

The Lady of the Day


"The Golden Age of Jazz"

- photograph by William GottliebPosted by Hello

My hat goes off to the inventor and poster-child of "The Blues" of Jazz,
or, to my mind, "Hurtin' Songs" of Country Music,
or a "Lenten Psalm" in the old "Negro Spirituals".
She hurt lots,
She wrote about hurt real good and
Sang Hurtin' Songs the best because
She never knew anything else but hurtin'
Her hurtin' voice healed her audience' hearts

Ladies 'n' Gents, I present,
the one, the only ...

The Billie Holiday

My tribute to Billie Holiday is best understood if seen in conjunction with the material on her 'sister sites' ~


"
Sing Charisma" or "Beauty Dovetailed into One Venus”
~ my "Idolized Goddess" blog ...
"My claim to fame is that I was born with the planet Venus in Aries like Marilyn Munroe. When Twiggy was a top-model, I had a figure just like hers – she helped me feel less ugly. My Collage of celebrated women who make me feel beautiful when I look at their images. They were either demonized for their 'cautour edge' or dismissed as blonde 'molls', yet each made a paradigm shift in our view of 'Beautiful Woman'."


"Witch-Lynching or Rebels-in-the-Rough?"
~ my "Dethroned Goddess" blog ...
"My mandate for this blog is personal opinion, guesstimating and analysis ~ pure and simple ~ of the subjects, the women, portrayed on my two sister blogs."


Posted by HelloThe Biography from the Official Web Site of Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday's grandfather was one of 17 children of a black Virginia slave and a white Irish plantation owner. Her mother was only 13 when she was born.

The future "Lady Day" first heard the music of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith on a Victrola at Alice Dean's, the Baltimore "house of ill repute" where she ran errands and scrubbed floors as a young girl. She made her singing debut in obscure Harlem nightclubs (borrowing her professional name from screen star Billie Dove), then toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw before going solo. Benny Goodman dragged the frightened singer to her first studio session. Between 1933 and 1944, she recorded over 200 "sides," but she never received royalties for any of them.

Despite a lack of technical training, Holiday's unique diction, inimitable phrasing and acute dramatic intensity made her the outstanding jazz singer of her day. White gardenias, worn in her hair, became her trademark.

"Singing songs like the 'The Man I Love' or 'Porgy' is no more work than sitting down and eating Chinese roast duck, and I love roast duck," she wrote in her autobiography. "I've lived songs like that." Her own compositions included "God Bless the Child," espousing the virtues of financial independence and "Don't Explain," lament on infidelity.

Billie Holiday, a musical legend still popular today, died an untimely death at the age of 44.


Billie Holiday Quotes

"Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain."

"I can't stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years. If you can, then it ain't music, it's close-order drill or exercise or yodeling or something, not music."

"If I don't have friends, then I ain't nothing."

"If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling."

"If you think dope is for kicks and for thrills, you're out of your mind. There are more kicks to be had in a good case of paralytic polio or by living in an iron lung."

"I'm always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I've been. "

"I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was six years old."

"Mom & Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen and I was three."

"No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music."

"Singing songs like 'The Man I Love' or 'Porgy' is no more work than sitting down and eating Chinese roast duck, and I love roast duck."

"Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what's more than enough."

"Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose."

"You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation."

"You can't copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music."

"You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave."

Quotes about Billie Holiday

"Billie Holiday's voice was the voice of living intensity of soul in the true sense of that greatly abused word. As a human being she was sweet, sour, kind, mean, generous, profane, lovable and impossible, and nobody who knew her expects to see anyone quite like her again." -Leonard Feather

"She could express more emotion in one chorus than most actresses can in three acts."- Jeanne Moreau

Posted by Hellopostage stamp

What makes a hero? What does it take to become a legend?

"One Person"

- website, Miro Krizic
Posted by Hello

Perhaps one of the largest areas of African-American influence is in the sports arena. When Jackie Robinson stepped out on the field with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, he abolished Major League Baseball's color barrier. How could we forget the pitching speed of Satchel Paige? Or the triple-threat created by Monte Irvin's power-hitting, smooth fielding and base stealing? The 242 home runs, which Roy Campanella scored as a catcher, are still unparalleled. Living legends Lou Brock and Fergie Jenkins were athletes to be reckoned with; Brock's talent for a quick-steal burned up the bases for 12 consecutive years, while Jenkins established himself as a formidable strikeout force.

Jesse Owens left Hitler speechless when he took home four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics. In 1966, Olympic gold-medallist Jim Hines became the first man to finish the 100-meter sprint in less than 10 seconds. And who could help but admire Florence Griffith-Joyner, who received worldwide acclaim at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, where she shattered records and captured a silver, three golds, and the hearts of millions.

How about Joe Louis, who held the world heavyweight title longer than any man in boxing history? When he was 21-years-old, Floyd Patterson became the youngest heavyweight champion ever. Charismatic and five-time middleweight champion, Sugar Ray Robinson, is often considered the greatest boxer of the twentieth century.

A true champion on and off the court, Arthur Ashe rose above racial discrimination to become the #1 ranked tennis player in the world. Not to be excluded are football greats John Henry Johnson, Dick Lane, Ollie Matson, Willie Brown and Willie Davis, all of whom triumphed in the face of adversity.

Instead of waiting for others to lead the Civil Rights movement, Malcolm X devoted his life to obtaining racial equality. Can you imagine having a belief strong enough to lead millions toward one common goal, and essentially changing the course of history?

Through hard work and determination, these legendary individuals have helped to better humanity. Their lasting accomplishments serve as proof that one person can make a difference.


CMG Worldwide's Tribute to Black History website, Feb 9 2005 Posted by Hello

The Golden Age of Jazz

- photograph by William Gottlieb Posted by Hello

"It came out of the dark heart of America,
the aura, the smoke-filled essence of jazz,
the music of joy, abandon, yearning.
New cadences, accents, pulsations.
Nights of improvisation and hot rapturous jazz.
New York's 52nd Street, Swing Street, the mecca.
It was to be William P. Gottlieb who would capture
with his own instrument, the camera, the soul
of this jazz, its voices, its prophets, its players,
Bill who would become the chronicler
of the golden age."


- quote by Eve Berliner, Editor of Eve's Magazine, www.evesmag.com


Billie Holdiay with LouisArmstrong, artist Phil Stern, art.com#10030552 Posted by Hello

"Lady Sings the Blues" - art.com #10112439 Posted by Hello

The Billie Holiday Fan Club

For a very active Billy Holiday Fan Club in the UK that began way back in 1946, when Billie was 31 years old - if my Math is correct. For any latest updates on archive-finds, new tributes, and so on keep your eyes peeled on their website.
My rating: *****

The Unofficial BILLIE HOLIDAY Website

For a unique hard-to-find collection of Billie Holiday reading, listening, and watching, as well as biography, lyrics, and artwork, go look-see ~
The Unofficial BILLIE HOLIDAY Website ~ it's a well-worth-watching site!
My rating: *****


Billie age 2 (Would that be a gardenia?) Photographer: unknown. Posted by Hello

I downloaded he following text and links directly from the website page on video footage ~ difference the graphics of gray text and white links on stark black looked so much better:

WORTH WATCHING
There is actually little video footage of Billie available, here is just a small collection for stamplovers:


Billie and Louis Armstrong, Photographer unknown Posted by Hello

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – Inductee 225

Inductee Timeline

April 7, 1915
Eleanora Fagan Gough, a.k.a. Billie Holiday, is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1933
Billie Holiday makes her first recordings.
November 27, 1933
Billie Holiday's first commercial recording session, with bandleader Benny Goodman, is organized by John Hammond, who has brought her to Columbia Records.
July 2, 1935
Billie Holiday records with jazz pianist Teddy Wilson and his orchestra, with whom she'll cut some of her most memorable sides.
January 25, 1937
Tenor sax player Lester "Prez" Young and trumpeter Buck Clayton play with Billie Holiday as part of Wilson's orchestra. It is Young who later bestows the nickname "Lady Day" upon Holiday.
March 13, 1937
Billie Holiday teams with the Count Basie Orchestra.
1939
Billie Holiday is among the first artists to perform at Cafe Society, a new jazz club in Manhattan. Two classic songs introduced in this propitious year, "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child," remain her masterworks.
1944
Billie Holiday signs with Decca Records, for whom she records "Easy Living," "Crazy He Calls Me," "Them There Eyes," and others.
May 12, 1945
The only single of Billie Holiday's ever to chart, "Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be), enters Billboard's R&B chart, rising to #5.
1957
Joined by Lester "Prez" Young and other jazz legends, Billie Holiday sings "Fine and Mellow" on the historic The Sound of Jazz telecast.
1958
Returning to Columbia, Billie Holiday records the memorable Lady in Satin album with the Ray Ellis Orchestra.
May 25, 1959
Billie Holiday gives her final performance in New York City.
July 17, 1959
Billie Holiday dies in New York City from complications brought on by alcoholism and heroin addiction.
1972
The biographical film Lady Sings the Blues, based on Billie Holiday's autobiography, renews interest in her life and work. Diana Ross stars as Holiday.
March 6, 2000
Billie Holiday is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the fifteenth annual induction dinner. Diana Ross is her presenter.

Famous Last Words for a Woman of such Legacy

"Too Many Bad Kicks" ~
Billie for the First Time Tells Why She Left Shaw & Basie
'I'll Never Sing with a Dance Band Again' - Holiday

Billie Holiday - early portrait Posted by Hello

A telling archive story on Billie's character that I found in Down Beat Magazine, in which Billie Holiday is interviewed ...

Chicago -- You sit with Billie Holiday and watch her smoke cigarettes chain fashion. The first thing that strikes you is her frankness.
"I'll never sing with a dance band again," she tells you. "Because it never works out right for me. They wonder why I left Count Basie, and why I left Artie Shaw. Well I'll tell you why--and I've never told this before.
"Basie had too many managers--too many guys behind the scenes who told everybody what to do. The Count and I got along fine. And the boys in the band were wonderful all the time. But it was this and that, all the time, and I got fed up with it. Basie didn't fire me; I gave him my notice.

Bad Kicks with Shaw
Artie Shaw was a lot worse. I had known him a long time, when he was strictly from hunger around New York, long before he got a band. At first we worked together okay, then his managers started belly-aching. Pretty soon it got so I would sing just two numbers a night. When I wasn't singing, I had to stay backstage. Artie wouldn't let me sit out front with the band. Last year when we were at the Lincoln Hotel the hotel management told me I had to use the back door. That was all right. But I had to ride up and down in the freight elevators, and every night Artie made me stay upstairs in a little room without a radio or anything all the time.
"Finally it got so I would stay up there, all by myself, reading everything I could get my hands on, from 10 o'clock to nearly 2 in the morning, going downstairs to sing just one or two numbers. Then one night we had an airshot Artie said he couldn't let me sing. I was always given two shots on each program. The real trouble was this--Shaw wanted to sign me to a five-year contract and when I refused, it burned him. He was jealous of the applause I got when I made one of my few appearances with the band each night."

Posted by Hello
Never Paid for Record
You ask Billie why she didn't make more records with Shaw. You remember that the only side she made, on Bluebird, was a thing titled "Any Old Time" and was really wonderful.
"That's a laugh," she answers. "Artie never paid me for that record. Just before it came out I simply got enough of Artie's snooty, know-it-all mannerisms, and the outrageous behavior of his managers, and left the band. I guess Artie forgot about 'Any Old Time.' I know he never paid me. With Basie I got $70 a week--with Artie I got $65. When I make my own records I get $150. That's another reason I left Shaw.
"One afternoon we were driving along in Artie's car to a one-night stand. We passed an old man on the road who had a beard. I asked Artie if he had ever worn a beard, and that I'd bet he sure'd look funny if he wore one.
"Chuck Petersen, George Arus, Les Jenkins, and a couple of other boys in the band were also in the car. So we were all surprised when Artie said 'I used to wear a beard all the time--when I was farming my own farm a few years back.' I asked Artie if he looked good or bad with a beard--and I was just joking, you know, to make conversation on a long drive.
"'Indeed I did look fine with a beard,' Artie said. 'I looked exactly like Jesus Christ did when he was young.'"
Billie slapped her pudgy thigh, lighted another cigarette, and continued.

Gave Him a Name
You should have heard the boys and me roar at that. We got a bang out of it. Artie looked mad, because he had been serious. So I said, 'We'll just call you Jesus Christ, King of the Clarinet, and his Band.'
"Now here's the payoff--the story got out around Boston and even today, we hear a lot of the musicians refer to Artie as 'Jesus Christ and his Clarinet'."
You figure you've heard enough dirt about the pitfalls of a young girl with a dance band and you ask Billie to tell you something about herself. She comes through with the word that she is Baltimore born, and that she got her first job when she was 14 years old, after she and her mother moved to New York.
Posted by HelloPosted by Hello
Billie Gets Desperate
This is the truth. Mother and I were starving. It was cold. Father had left us and remarried when I was 10. Mother was a housemaid and couldn't find work. I tried scrubbing floors, too, but I just couldn't do it.
"We lived on 145th Street near Seventh Avenue. One day we were so hungry we could barely breathe. I started out the door. It was cold as all-hell and I walked from 145th to 133rd down Seventh Avenue, going in every joint trying to find work. Finally, I got so desperate I stopped in the Log Cabin Club, run by Jerry Preston. I told him I wanted a drink. I didn't have a dime. But I ordered gin (it was my first drink--I didn't know gin from wine) and gulped it down. I asked Preston for a job...told him I was a dancer. He said to dance. I tried it. He said I stunk. I told him I could sing. He said sing. Over in the corner was an old guy playing a piano. He struck 'Travelin'' and I sang. The customers stopped drinking. They turned around and watched. The pianist, Dick Wilson, swung into 'Body and Soul.' Jeez, you should have seen those people--all of them started crying. Preston came over, shook his head and said 'Kid, you win.' That's how I got my start.

Goodman Uses Her
First thing I did was get a sandwich. I gulped it down. Believe me--the crowd gave me $18 in tips. I ran out the door. Bought a whole chicken. Ran up Seventh Avenue to my home. Mother and I ate that night-- and we have been eating pretty well since."
Benny Goodman used Billie on a record (Columbia) of "My Mother's Son in Law" when Teagarden, Krupa and others were in his recording band--before he really organized his present combo. The disc is an item today, not only because of the fine instrumental work, but because it was Holiday's first side. She was pretty lousy. You tell her so and she grins. "But I was only 15 then," she said, "And I was scared as the devil."

She Doesn't Sing
You tell Billie you think you've got enough dope for a little story, but that one thing worries you. That is--why does she sing like she does--what's behind it?
"Look Dex," Billie answers. "I don't think I'm singing. I feel like I am playing a horn. I try to improvise like Les Young, like Louie Armstrong, or someone else I admire. What comes out is what I feel. I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That's all I know."

Sad Love Life
You ask her one more thing, recalling how at various times Billie has been reported ready to marry. She shows her frankness again. "I've loved three men," she tells you. "One was a Marion Scott, when I was a kid. He works for the post office now. The other was Freddie Green, Basie's guitar man. But Freddie's first wife is dead and he has two children and somehow it didn't work out. The third was Sonny White, the pianist, but like me, he lives with his mother and our plans for marriage didn't jell. That's all."
Billie says she isn't satisfied now. She wants to get somewhere. Maybe on the stage. She wants to make money--a lot of it. She wants to buy a big home for her mother. She doesn't expect any happiness--she is used to taking hard knocks, tough breaks. And she admits she is envious of Maxine Sullivan and other colored singers who have gotten so much farther ahead than she. Someday, she thinks, she'll get a real break. But she's not very optimistic about it. Billie Holiday is convinced the future will be as unglamorous and unprofitable as her past.

"Lady Day - The Many Faces of Billy Holiday"


Movie Poster Posted by Hello

The Film Industry Remembers Billie ~ tho' she never starred in a film



- Frank Driggs, photographer
Posted by Hello

"Internet Movie Database" has a profile for Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday was remembered in film primarily as a Music Composer and Lyrics Writer and for her legendary personality, notably, after her death:

Miscellaneous Crew - filmography (2000s) (1990s) (1980s) (1960s)
The Notebook (2004) (singer: "I'll Be Seeing You")
Minority Report (2002) (singer: "Solitude")
Chelsea Walls (2001) (singer: "What a Little Moonlight Can Do") ... aka Chelsea Hotel
Crosswalk (1999) (singer: "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "I'll Be Seeing You")
Lumière et compagnie (1995) (singer: "Lady Sings the Blues") ... aka Lumière and Company (International: English title) ... aka Lumiere y compañía (Spain)
Forget Paris (1995) (singer: "Love Is Here To Stay" and "For All We Know")
Schindler's List (1993) (singer: "God Bless the Child")
Slaves of New York (1989) (singer: "Am I Blue?")
Torch Song Trilogy (1988) (singer: "What's New" and "But Not For Me")
Rocket Gibraltar (1988) (singer: "You Better Go Now", "Don't Explain" and "Foolin' Myself")
Eva (1962) (singer: "Loveless Love" and "Willow Weep for Me") (as Billy Holiday) ... aka Eva (USA) ... aka Eva, the Devil's Woman ... aka Eve (UK)

Filmography as: Miscellaneous Crew, Composer, Actress, Writer, Herself, Archive Footage, Notable TV Guest Appearances

Composer - filmography (2000s) (1990s) (1980s) (1970s) (1960s) (1950s)
Glenn Miller 2000 (2001) (song "Travelin light")
Any Given Sunday (1999) (song "Don't Explain")
Schindler's List (1993) (song "God Bless the Child")
Rocket Gibraltar (1988) (song "Don't Explain")
Liza with a 'Z' (1972) (TV) (song "God Bless the Child") ... aka Singer Presents Liza with A Z (USA)
Man Outside (1965)
'Sugar Chile' Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet (1951) (song "God Bless the Child")
Panic in the Streets (1950) (song "Fine and Mellow")


"Billie Holiday - Lady Day" - art.com#10033851
Posted by Hello

Archive Footage

Strange Fruit (2002) .... Herself
It's Black Entertainment (2002) (TV) .... Herself
Reputations: Billie Holiday (2001) (TV) .... Herself
"Jazz" (2001) (mini) .... Herself
Carnegie Hall Salutes the Jazz Masters: Verve Records at 50 (1994) (TV) .... Herself
Apollo Theatre Hall of Fame (1993) (TV) .... Herself
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? (1975) .... Herself

Notable TV Guest Appearances
"Walk On By: The Story of Popular Song" playing "Herself" (archive footage) in episode: "Stardust" (episode # 1.2) 24 March 2001
"The Seven Lively Arts" playing "Herself" in episode: "The Sound of Jazz" 8 December 1957

News for Billie Holiday
"Jazz Man Artie Shaw Dies"
31 December 2004 (WENN) Celebrated jazz clarinetist Artie Shaw has died in California, aged 94. The musician, who was married to stunners Ava Gardner and Lana Turner, is famous for his renditions of standards like "Begin The Beguine" and "Lady Be Good" in the 1930s. Shaw teamed up with jazz greats like Billie Holiday and Buddy Rich for hits in the 1920s and 1930s. A famously difficult man, Shaw quit playing jazz in the 1960s because he insisted he could no longer play at the standard he set himself. He spent years as a recluse before reviving his band and occasionally standing in as conductor in the early 1980s.

"Streisand's an Eminem Fan"
9 December 2002 (WENN) Rapper Eminem has been given unusual praise from legendary diva Barbra Streisand. The diva admits she has seen the rapper's new movie 8 Mile - and the singer and actress is a big fan. She says, "I like things that are emotional, whether it's Billie Holiday or Eminem singing about his youth and his pain and vulnerability. I think he really understands the power of the inner self. I didn't always understand what they were saying in the movie, but it's a slice of real life. I grew up in a very poor neighborhood, so I totally relate to that part of music today. That's a big part of me, that kid playing in the street."

"Jane's Trick For Getting Into Character"
2 October 2000 (WENN) Little Voice (1998) star Jane Horrocks has revealed how she managed to get into the character of the women she mimics on her new CD. The Yorkshire actress, 36, is working on an album - "The Further Adventures of Little Voice" - sung in the voices of such stars as Marilyn Monroe and Billie Holiday. To stop herself getting confused and to help her get the voices just right, Jane and her singing teacher came up with key words to help her focus on each character. "For Monroe...'Big t**s'. Also, 'Pout' and 'Sexy lips'." For Judy Garland, Jane used the words, 'On the edge'. "That's what I had to do for Garland. You have a feeling that she's going to burst into tears at any moment."

In IMBd.com's biography for Billie Holiday, the most notable facts they entered were in the trivia ~ after all, she had no celebrity as a movie star or movie-maker:

Trade mark: Gardenia flower in her hair

Trivia:

She died with 70 cents in the bank and $750 strapped to her leg -- a reminder of her life-long fear of poverty.
In 1959, narcotic addiction was a crime, not an illness. She was arrested on her deathbed.
Billie had no cabaret card and this kept her from working in New York City clubs for the last 12 years of her life.
Her given name was Eleanora -- "Billie" came from silent screen star
Billie Dove.
Inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979.
Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000 (under the category Early Influence).
Posthumously inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for "God Bless The Child" (1976), "Strange Fruit" (1978), "Lover Man" (1989), and "Lady In Satin" (2000)
Made her recording debut on "Your Mother's Son-In-Law" (1933) with Benny Goodman.
Was the common-law wife of trumpeter Joe Guy (1951-1957), but they always identified themselves to people as husband and wife. She was separated from her last husband, Louis McKay, at the time of her death.
Her grandfather was one of 17 children born to a black Virginia slave and her white Irish master.
At the time of her birth, her mother, Sadie Fagan (born Sarah Harris), was just 13. Her father, Clarence Holiday, was 15. It's uncertian if they ever married. Clarence abandoned Sadie when Billie was an infant.
Ranked #6 on VH1's 100 Greatest Women of Rock N Roll
Cousin of former boxing champion turned minister Henry Armstrong.



Billie Holiday - 1957 Posted by Hello

Obituary - New York Times, "On This Day", April 7


Undated photo of jazz queen Billie Holiday during a recording session
- The Associated Press
Posted by Hello

July 18, 1959 --
OBITUARY
by THE NEW YORK TIMES

Billie Holiday Dies Here at 44; Jazz Singer Had Wide Influence

Billie Holiday, famed jazz singer, died yesterday in Metropolitan Hospital. Her age was 44. The immediate cause of death was given as congestion of the lungs complicated by heart failure.
Miss Holiday had lived at 26 West Eighty-seventh Street. She had been under arrest in her hospital bed since June 12 for illegal possession of narcotics.
Miss Holiday set a pattern during her most fruitful years that has proved more influential than that of almost any other jazz singer, except the two who inspired her, Louis Armstrong and the late Bessie Smith.
Miss Holiday became a singer more from desperation than desire. She was named Eleanora Fagan after her birth in Baltimore. She was the daughter of a 13-year-old mother, Sadie Fagan, and a 15-year-old father who were married there years after she was born.
The first and major influence on her singing came when as a child she ran errands for the girls in a near-by brothel in return for the privilege of listening to recordings by Mr. Armstrong and Miss Smith.
Miss Holiday took her professional name from her father, Clarence Holiday, a guitarist who played with Fletcher Henderson's band in the Nineteen Twenties and from one of the favorite movie actresses of her childhood, Billie Dove.
She came to New York with her mother in 1928. They eked out a precarious living for a while, partially from her mother's employment as a housemaid. But when the depression struck, her mother was unable to find work. Miss Holiday tried to make money scrubbing floors, and when this failed she started along Seventh Avenue in Harlem one night looking for any kind of work.
At Jerry Preston's Log Cabin, a night club, she asked for work as a dancer. She danced the only step she knew for fifteen choruses and was turned down. The pianist, taking pity on her, asked if she could sing. She brashly assured him that she could. She sang "Trav'lin' All Alone" and then "Body and Soul" and got a job--$2 a night for six nights a week working from midnight until about 3 o'clock the next afternoon.

Recommended to Goodman
Miss Holiday had been singing in Harlem in this fashion for a year or two when she was heard by John Hammond, a jazz enthusiast, who recommended her to Benny Goodman, at that time a relatively unknown clarinet player who was the leader on occasional recording sessions.
She made her first recording, "Your Mother's Son-in-Law" in November, 1933, singing one nervous chorus with a band that included in addition to Mr. Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Gene Krupa and Joe Sullivan.
Two years later Miss Holiday started a series of recordings with groups led by Teddy Wilson, the pianist, which established her reputation in the jazz world. On many of these recordings the accompanying musicians were members of Count Basie's band, a group with which she felt a special affinity. She was particularly close to Mr. Basie's tenor saxophonist, the late Lester Young.
It was Mr. Young who gave her the nickname by which she was known in jazz circles--Lady Day. She in turn created the name by which Mr. Young was identified by jazz bands, "Pres." She was the vocalist with the Basie band for a brief time during 1937 and the next year she signed for several months with Artie Shaw's band.
Miss Holiday came into her own as a singing star when she appeared at Cafe Society in New York in 1938 for the major part of the year. It was at Cafe Society that she introduced one of her best-known songs, "Strange Fruit," a biting depiction of a lynching written by Lewis Allen.
During that engagement, too, she established trade-marks that followed her for many years--the swatch of gardenias in her hair, her fingers snapping lazily with the rhythm, her head cocked back at a jaunty angle as she sang.

Arrested in 1947
In 1947, a cloud that had been gathering over Miss Holiday and which was to cover the rest of her career, burst on her. She was arrested for a narcotics violation and, at her own request, was committed to a Federal rehabilitation establishment at Alderson, W. Va., for a year and a day in an attempt to rid herself of the habit.
Ten days after her release Miss Holiday gave a concert at Carnegie Hall to a packed house but, although she appeared at concert halls in New York from time to time after that, she was not allowed to appear in New York night clubs. As a result of her narcotics conviction, she could not get the necessary cabaret license.
During the Nineteen Fifties Miss Holiday's voice began to lose its useful elasticity. This, combined with occasional brushes with narcotics agents, made her last years difficult, although she continued to record frequently.
Miss Holiday appeared in a film, "New Orleans," in 1946 and was featured in a Broadway revue for a short run a few years later. In 1954 she made a tour of Europe and was featured in a widely acclaimed television program, "The Sound of Jazz," in 1958.
She is survived by her husband, Louis McKay. A previous marriage, to Joe Guy, a trumpet player, ended in divorce.

Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

For the Official Encyclopedia Description of Ms. Day"

see The World Book, where she is listed as "Jazz Vocalist":


Posted by Hello Billie Holiday (1915-1959) won recognition as the most moving jazz singer of her day. She was admired for the uniquely bittersweet quality of her voice, and for phrasing that had much in common with the solos of the great improvising jazz musicians. Although Holiday was often described as a blues singer, she was principally an interpreter of popular songs.

Billie Holiday was born in Baltimore and raised by her mother in a black ghetto. She described the hardships of her childhood in Lady Sings the Blues (1956), an inaccurate but interesting autobiography. She made her first recordings with Benny Goodman in 1933. Her most distinctive work was recorded between 1936 and 1944. In these recordings, she was often accompanied by such great jazz musicians as Count Basie, Roy Eldridge, Teddy Wilson, and Lester Young. After 1950, drug addiction increasingly affected her health and her career.

*NOTE: The Bookmark Links on the right side of the page, where they classify the "Jazz" categories, along with "Spirituals", "Blues", "Rock and roll", "Classical music", and "Related Web sites under the rather endearing umbrella title:

~ the link to the page, "World Book -African American Music" ~

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

A "Year 2000" Update of Billie's Biography

The text from the Biography on A&E Search Results for "Billie Holiday" :

Holiday (Holliday), Billie ~ 1915-1959
Jazz musician. Born Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915, in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father, Clarence Holiday — a guitarist who played with Fletcher Henderson’s big band, never married her mother, Sadie Fagan, and eventually abandoned the family. Holiday (some sources say Holliday) grew up amidst wrenching poverty, neglect, and loneliness, and began working at the age of six; hearing, for the first time, the sweet sounds of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith while scrubbing the floors of a local brothel. At the age of ten, she was raped by a neighbor, and then sent to a home for “wayward girls.” She was jailed for prostitution at the age of 14.

By 1928, Holiday was living in Harlem, New York City, and had begun to look for work in local nightclubs, aspiring to be a dancer or a singer. She secured a job singing at Jerry Preston’s Log Cabin and soon found she could bring customers to tears with her melancholy singing style; she used her voice like an instrument, singing behind the beat in a feathery voice full of woe and longing. Consistently unreliable as she was appealing, Holiday could not keep a job and moved from one nightclub to another, gaining experience and exposure. In 1932, jazz producer John Hammond heard Holiday and arranged for her to record a few titles with Benny Goodman’s orchestra; from then on she recorded regularly for Columbia and eventually worked in a pickup band led by Teddy Wilson. Her voice and style continued to develop and flourish in the 1930s, and by 1937 she was making some of the finest recordings of her career with Buck Clayton and Lester Young, who gave her the name “Lady Day.” Together, the group turned second-rate love songs into jazz classics.

That same year, Holiday toured with Count Basie’s Orchestra, from which only a few precious recordings remain. She then fronted the all-white Artie Shaw’s Orchestra and experienced so much racial discrimination on the road that she eventually abandoned the tour and returned to New York. She began to perform regularly at Café Society, the interracial Greenwich Village haven for liberal intellectuals, music aficionados, and the political left. Around this time, Holiday recorded "Strange Fruit," a biting, anti-racist song depicting a lynching, which she always performed with a driving, understated intensity. Unfortunately, as Holiday’s following steadily increased, she slowly began to succumb to sadness and self-destructive behavior. By the early 1940s, she had embarked on a turbulent and abusive marriage to James Monroe, who introduced her to heroin and opium.

From 1944 to 1950, Holiday recorded with Decca and her singing further evolved; the way her increasingly limited range and delicately wavering voice rendered the phrases of her finely wrought songs lent them even more emotional weight and became her trademark style. During this period, she recorded “God Bless the Child,” “Don’t Explain,” “Them There Eyes,” and her biggest hit, “Lover Man.” In the meantime, Holiday’s personal life grew stormier and the repercussions of her drug-abuse more devastating. She spent the majority of 1947 in prison for heroin possession and lost her cabaret license. Upon her release, she could no longer sing at the popular clubs in New York City. However, she continued to grow in popularity because of the scandal and her seemingly glamorous, notorious reputation.

By the 1950s, Holiday’s voice had deteriorated tremendously due to years of abuse and she continued even faster down her destructive path of drugs, abusive relationships, and alcohol. In 1952, she began recording for Verve, but the once charming voice on the verge of breaking had now broken. Her 1958 album, Lady in Satin, revealed a tired Holiday, with a voice that barely croaked its lines, although the timing and phrasing were as intelligent as ever, if only not as inspired. In 1959, Holiday collapsed and was hospitalized; while on her deathbed, she was arrested once again for possession of narcotics. She died on July 17, 1959, of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 44.

Although many still regard Holiday as a genius victim of horrible circumstances, recent research reveals a woman very much in control of her musical artistry, and very much aware of what she was doing and why. Will Friedwald describes Holiday in a music review as, “the woman who taught the world that the interaction and feeling of jazz musicians was the ultimate key to interpreting the American song lyric.”

© 2000 A&E Television Networks. All rights reserved.

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Billie Holiday
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The text from the History Channel Search Results for "Billie Holiday":
1-7 of 7

Check these first:

HOLIDAY, Billie,
Real name Eleanora Fagan (1915-59), one of the greatest jazz singers of all time, also...
YOUNG, Lester,
Called Pres or Prez (1909-59), American tenor saxophonist, one...

Also try these:

JAZZ,
Type of music developed by black Americans about 1900 and possessing an identifiable history and...

GORDY, Berry, Jr.,
(1929- ), American entrepreneur, songwriter, and record producer, the founder of the...
ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM,
Memorial institution opened in September 1995 in Cleveland, Ohio. Dedicated to rock music, the...
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Popularly referred to as the United States or as America, a federal republic of the North...
AFRICAN-AMERICAN MUSIC,
Music of the natives of many parts of Africa sold into slavery in the Americas, and of their...

Related Exhibits:
History Channel - Exhibits
Black History Month
Black History Month: Billie Holiday

Biography.com - Holiday (Holliday), Billie


Fullscreen capture 2 9 2005 12 54 57 PM Posted by Hello

Monday, February 07, 2005

God Bless the Child


Billie Holiday - 1949
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Lyrics by Billie holiday & Arthur Herzog Jr.

Them that's got shall get
Them that's not shall lose
So the bible said and it still is news
Mama may have, papa may have
But god bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own

Yes, the strong gets more
While the weak ones fade
Empty pockets don't ever make the grade
Mama may have, papa may have
But god bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own

Money, you've got lots of friends

Crowding round the door
When you're gone, spending ends
They don't come no more
Rich relations give
Crust of bread and such
You can help yourself
But don't take too much
Mama may have, papa may have
But god bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own

Mama may have, papa may have
But god bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own
He just worry 'bout nothin'
Cause he's got his own


Photographer: William P. Gottlieb, Carnegie Hall, New York, 1948 Posted by Hello


Billie Holiday and club owner Wesley Johnson, Sr. at the Fillmore. Posted by Hello