Billie Holiday - Complete Verve Studio Master Takes
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Artist: Billie HolidayBrand: HOLIDAY,BILLIE
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Box set, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2005-12-13
Music Label: Verve
Free Music Notes for Complete Verve Studio Master Takes
Free Music Review: Brilliant Music, Flawed Packaging
Hit: 5 Stars
My five star rating is for the music.
The track layout is an improvement over the 10-disc complete Verve boxed set. I wish I could say the same for the packaging.
When you open this set (which is in a hinged tin box) the first thing you see is the singly most unflattering photo of Billie Holiday I have ever seen in my life. She looks like a space alien, I'm not kidding. It's not Billie's fault - it's the way the photo is cropped - they have cut off her hair completely (she looks bald) and surrounded her head with a halo. The effect is totally surreal, and completely unflattering.
And there's worse news when you pull out the CD's - they fold out of the box in an "accordion" style, and the discs are attached to a cheap piece of silver cardboard. Assuming I play these discs as often as I expect to, my guess is that the box will last about six months before it completely falls apart.
And I don't know how they managed it, but my copy of the booklet that comes with the boxed set is bent and wrinkled - the way it's packaged, I would think it would be impossible to damage the booklet, but it looks like it went through a washing machine.
At least they can't screw up the music, although I do have one minor complaint about the tracks presented. This is supposed to be the complete Verve studio recordings, so I am puzzled to find that this box includes the March 1959 sessions that were done with Ray Ellis. I realize that Verve owns the rights to these tracks, but they were originally issued by MGM, and have no place in a set of Billie's Verve sessions. Don't get me wrong; I like the final sessions for what they're worth, but stylistically, they are totally different from the Norman Granz produced sessions that make up the bulk of the box. For this reason, they are a rather jarring contrast to the rest of the material, especially since they share disc 6 with the final four tracks from the January 1957 sessions.
I'm glad to finally have all of Billie's Verve Studio Masters in one box without the rehearsals, take announcements, false starts and alternate takes, but once again it seems that Verve has failed to present the package with much care or forethought.
Nevertheless, and despite all my misgivings about the packaging, I would not hesitate to recommend this set to anyone. Many people consider these small intimate sessions to be the best recordings that Billie Holiday ever did, and with good reason. Norman Granz had the good sense to back her with musicians who were stylistically of the same voice, background and temperament of Billie. Without exception, these musicians had all worked with her for years, and were very much in tune with her style. Her phrasing and diction were perfect, and the excellent musicians enhanced that perfection to the point that these tracks were about as great as jazz got in the 1950's.
Although I just got the set today, I have listened to the first three discs already. The sound has been completely remastered, and the result is that these tracks have never sounded better. Billie has been brought more to the front on some of the tracks that she was originally poorly positioned on. Even the 1952 tracks, which always sounded a little muffled, now have more clarity and presence than ever before. I am almost ready to totally forgive the layout.
Her January 1957 recording of Body and Soul may just be my all-time favorite Billie Holiday performance. The feeling and phrasing packed into that one track alone is worth every dime this boxed set costs. Other highlights from this set include Stars Fell on Alabama, Say It Isn't So, Darn That Dream, Sophisticated Lady, We'll Be Together Again (I dare you to not be moved), Everything I Have Is Yours, It Had To Be You, When Your Lover Has Gone, I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You, I Don't Want To Cry Anymore, Everything Happens To Me, I Thought About You, P.S. I Love You, He's Funny That Way, Autumn in New York, Solitude and You Go To My Head. Each of these are stunning performances, and fine examples of why Billie was famous for her phrasing and her feeling. Buy the set and pick your own favorites.
Complete Verve Studio Master Takes Poster
For many people, Billie Holiday (a.k.a. "Lady Day") wasn't just a jazz singer. She was the jazz singer, and remains so today. Thanks to her lifelong struggles with men, alcohol, and drug addiction, Holiday is often viewed as an archetypal example of the suffering artist--a singer who sang her life. And there's no denying the often heartrending quality of the classic recordings she made with musicians like Ben Webster, Oscar Peterson, and Harry "Sweets" Edison.But Holiday's sophisticated sense of rhythm, subtle melodic improvisations, and nuanced way with a lyric enabled her to invest everything she sang with new meaning, from swinging dance tunes to mournful ballads. And her cool, effortless manner only heightened the emotional impact of her delivery. She influenced several generations of singers and instrumentalists alike, and stands shoulder-to-shoulder alongside such iconic jazz figures as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Charlie Parker.Original recordings produced by Norman Granz and others.The final decade of Billie Holiday's life was one in which the singer, in the clutches of drugs and poor taste in men, slowly withered away. Amid this tragedy, Lady Day carried on with a bittersweet dignity that seemed only to grow as the years passed. Her matchless phrasing added a profundity to a worn-out lyric and her dark, ragged timbre exuded a venerable wisdom, but at the same time she acquired a faded vulnerability not heard in her earlier years. Collecting her studio work between 1952 and 1959 (when she died), this six-CD/100-song set offers a long and loving look at the Holiday of this era. She's joined here by the crème of jazz with an orchestra session at the end. And whereas The Complete Billie Holiday on Verve, 1945-1959 also offers uneven rehearsal tapes as well as live and radio performances, this collection zeroes in on prime studio cuts. This is for lovers of Lady Day, but not the obsessive. --Tad Hendrickson
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