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Lady
Day:
Remembering Billie
by Natasha Allen |
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"…It
is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest
single musical influence on me. Lady Day is unquestionably
the most important influence on American popular singing in the
last twenty years."
Frank Sinatra,
Ebony Magazine, 1958
"…If you asked her for a request, she might sing it if and
when she got good and ready. That was her way. She sang what she
wanted to sing."
Bea Colt,
From Billie Holiday: Wishing On The Moon by Donald Clarke
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For the commencement of this column, I wanted to speak about someone
I considered to be the quintessential jazz artist for not only
women but every human being alive on the planet Earth. No person
exemplifies this more than Billie Holiday a.k.a. Lady
Day. She single-handedly introduced "the Tear"-that aching quality
in one's voice that makes you feel it all; hardship, sorrow, passion
so much so that by the end of the song you feel the requisite tear
sliding down your face.
For example, give a listen to Lady in Satin. Unlike
the more polished tunes of earlier years, even the best producers
couldn't hide it. That wear and tear of sad times and bad years.
But it's because of that quality Lady in Satin is perhaps
my favorite CD [of Billie's]. What's wrong with showing the pain
and vulnerability that happens when life knocks you about? Donald
Clarke writes in his biographical account of Lady Day, Billie
Holiday: Wishing On The Moon, "…Yet there is no greater evidence
in Lady's recorded career than Lady in Satin of the fact
that interpretation of lyrics was her greatest strength. Lady
in Satin is painful listening because it is the audio equivalent
of shoving a video camera in the face of someone who is grieving;
yet it grows on you, because it's Lady."
Even when drugs and alcohol took a toll on her voice, Billie could
still manipulate phrasing and tonality with the best of them. No
one told Billie how to sing a song. There was Lady Day's way and
whatever came after that. She never performed the same song the
same way. With a laid-back - lazy at times - attention to enunciation,
her delivery allowed you to hear every word. At times, she was known
to frequently change tempos mid-song. John Simmons, a bassist
that frequently played with her claimed, " …It never dawned on her
whether she was in tune or anything else. She didn't have a voice.
It was just her version of lyrics, singing from within, from her
soul, her heart." Reflecting on Holiday's remarkable talent and
yet disastrous life, it's almost a case of the chicken and the egg--would
her voice that echoed heartbreak and broken dreams have resonated
so with the masses if she didn't know about it first hand?
It is important to note that as much as Billie's life was considered
a walking Public Service Announcement for why you shouldn't do drugs,
this was a woman in charge of her own destiny. In the tradition
of independent artists, she was already a veteran of several speakeasies
and nightclubs in Maryland and New York in the 1920's without the
use of booking agents and managers. In 1933, she was "discovered"
by John Hammond, leading to famous gigs with jazz notables
such as Benny Goodman, Count Basie (whose band she left when
she refused to compromise her musical style) and of course, Lester
Young. All this despite no musical training whatsoever.
In 1947, Lady Day was arrested for narcotics and served a year in
the Federal Reformatory for Women at Alderson in West Virginia.
While there, she constantly refused requests to utter simply a brief
musical note, reportedly saying in kind that she was there to be
punished. After serving her term, she came back ever triumphantly
to a sold out Carnegie Hall performance. Holiday made a notch for
civil rights when she performed Lewis Allan's (neč Abel Meeropol)
"Strange Fruit", the haunting tale of a lynching. To record
the song, she had to personally negotiated the deal because her
record company, Columbia Records, refused to issue the record due
to possible racial repercussions.
Despite being banned from playing in New York in the 1950's after
one arrest yanked her cabaret license for good, she went on to critical
acclaim in concert performances both stateside and internationally.
Bobby Tucker, her accompanist on the Carnegie date said,
"It was fantastic. It was unbelievable. There were seats in the
aisles, and there were about six hundred people sitting on the stage…
Everybody was scared to death until the introduction to the first
tune. It never was a contest; it was pure fun."
Much like Bessie Smith (one of her childhood idols), Holiday
was able to tell amazing stories of what it is like to be female
and black in America. She spoke about what is was like to go from
being the toast of jazz society; desirous and sexy as hell one minute
to being told constantly that your skin color is a detriment. By
pitch and diction, she could be strong and confident or fragile
and vulnerable. That's why she continues to be unmatched in musicianship
to this very day.
Many of the artists of today continue to take a page from her legacy
but almost none are truly able to convey rawness of emotion that
is undoubtedly, unmistakably Lady Day. What is universally agreed
is that any musician, fan, amateur, instrumentalist or just someone
with an ear for music should have Billie Holiday as part of their
collection-jazz or otherwise. |
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_________________________________
For more information visit:
http://www.cmgww.com/music/holiday/ |
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_________________________________
Natasha Allen, formerly with Essence magazine, is a freelance
writer and aspiring filmmaker living in New York. |
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