Billie Holiday - Ultimate Collection (W/Dvd) (Dol) (Dig)
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Billie HolidayEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2005-04-05
Music Label: Hip-O Records
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Miss Brown to You
- What a Little Moonlight Can Do
- I Cried for You
- Mean to Me
- Strange Fruit
- Fine and Mellow
- God Bless the Child
- Trav'lin' Light
- My Old Flame
- I'll Get By (As Long as I Have You)
- Billie's Blues
- He's Funny That Way
- Lover Man
- Don't Explain
- Good Morning Heartache
- No Good Man
- The Blues Are Brewin'
- Solitude
- Easy Living
- I Loves You Porgy
- My Man (Mon Homme)
- 'Tain't Nobody's Bizness if I Do
- Them There Eyes
- You Can't Lose a Broken Heart
- You're My Thrill
- Crazy He Calls Me
- Detour Ahead
- These Foolish Things
- You Go to My Head
- Love Me or Leave Me
- Willow Weep for Me
- I Thought About You
- I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm
- Come Rain or Come Shine
- It Had to Be You
- What's New?
- Lady Sings the Blues
- I Cover the Waterfront [Live]
- Body and Soul
- But Not for Me
- One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)
- I'm a Fool to Want You
Free Music Notes for Ultimate Collection (W/Dvd) (Dol) (Dig)
Free Music Review: Great Overview of Her Recording Career
Hit: 5 Stars
I agree with many of the others here that this is a great overview of Billie Holiday's recording career. There is not much to add to the comments about this marvelous collection, but I would like to add some observations and other information that Lady Day aficionados may find interesting.
Just to correct one of the other reviewers, the four Aladdin sides (Detour Ahead, Blue Turning Grey Over You, Be Fair With Me Baby and Rocky Mountain Blues) are all available on a Blue Note CD release titled Billie's Blues, which also includes the Paul Whiteman studio track Trav'lin' Light.
This collection does not include quite every label that Billie made studio recordings for: I wish they'd thought to include Billie's only recording with Artie Shaw, Any Old Time. It's much harder to track down than any of her other studio sides. Any Old Time is quite a jump for her stylistically, as it is done in a "big band" style that more evokes Glenn Miller, the Dorsey Brothers or, well Artie Shaw. It's available on more than one Artie Shaw CD release, but they are hard to find. I have it on a CD put out by the Jazz Heritage label under the album title "Frenesi".
One of the interesting inclusions on the Ultimate Collection DVD is a discography that lists virtually every Billie Holiday studio recording and all of her "authorized" live recordings. The only omissions I am aware of are some rare vinyl pressings (more about these later). Of course, there are many, many bootleg live recordings (most of these either very poorly recorded or they are examples of Lady Day at her worst, or both). I'd like to list a few interesting exceptions. In the 70's, TCB records put out a vinyl titled "The One and Only Billie Holiday - Lady Sings the Blues - Collectors Edition". It's mostly poor quality bootlegs, including the songs from the "soundtrack" for the film "New Orleans", but one track I've never found anywhere else is a radio transcript (?) of a live recording of Don't Explain that is absolutely breathtaking. Billie is in amazing voice, and her reading of the song was never more effective. She starts the track by exclaiming "I'd like to sing a song that I wrote; it's titled 'Don't Explain' ..." and then launches right into it, with a full orchestra. The audio quality is exceptional, but the track is marred by a slight "skip" on the first line that seems to have originated with the source material. Vocally, Billie never sounded better; I'd guess it was recorded around 1942. I've been hoping for years that this would pop up on a CD somewhere, but it seems to be the most elusive and rare track I own of her.
Other rare performances never released on CD include the infamous live set at the Storyville club in Boston, issued on the RIC label and later by Monmouth-Evergreen. This album is not very interesting, as it presents Billie in a poorly recorded setting and, vocally, she was having an off night, but it is of interest to aficionados and those who want to have a complete set of Lady's recordings. I am not aware that it's ever been released on CD.
Then there are the three albums of "radio and TV broadcasts" issued by ESP Disc on vinyl in the 70's. These were available briefly on CD in a three disc set, but I didn't bother acquiring it; the performances are not very worthwhile, except for a few that are available elsewhere.
In 1986, Blackhawk Records released a vinyl album of a "recently discovered" complete recital recorded October 5, 1958 at the Monterey Jazz festival. Guest musicians supporting Billie include Gerry Mulligan and Benny Carter (you know they're really there because they are introduced when they join the band halfway through the set). Billie's performance is not half bad, especially considering how late in her life it was recorded. Unfortunately, the best track on the album vocally, Good Morning Heartache, is ruined by the sudden appearance of a prop plane (it was an outdoor festival) coming in for a landing at Monterey airport. The engines drone on for several moments, at one point completely drowning out Billie and the band. Nevertheless, I have tried to find it on CD, and I am hoping that it will be eventually released, as it's especially interesting for it's superb audio quality. Also several of Billie's standards are refreshed by new arrangments, which seem to buoy her performance and make the 11 tracks all the more interesting.
Finally, in 1958 Columbia records gave a "party" for some of their recording artists at the Edwardian Room at the Plaza Hotel, NYC. Although not intended to be released commercially (the recording quality is marginal), in 1973 Columbia released two vinyl LP's called "Jazz at the Plaza" Volumes I and II. Volume I was the second part of the program, headed by Miles Davis, and Columbia recently released it on CD. Volume II, which has not yet appeared on CD (but I'm hopeful) presented the Duke Ellington Orchestra with special guests. The guest vocalists were Jimmy Rushing and Billie Holiday. Billie does two songs, When Your Lover Has Gone and Don't Explain, accompanied only by Duke Ellington on piano and Buck Clayton on trumpet. What's wonderful about it, aside from the fact that it's the only performance Billie recorded with Duke Ellington since she sang "Saddest Tale" in the 1935 short film Symphony in Black, is that Duke Ellington wrote a "new" piano arrangement for Don't Explain that is absolutely thrilling in it's simplicity and beauty. It's so good, that Billie used it for the rest of her life (there is a TV performance clip of her singing Don't Explain in 1958 with Mal Waldron that essentially uses the same arrangement - see the DVD release The Genius of Lady Day). Although only two tracks, it remains one of my favorite live late recordings of Billie Holiday.
Until the wonderful day when every single recording and video performance of the great Lady Day is available, the Billie Holiday Ultimate Collection is certainly a good start, and well worth the investment.
Ultimate Collection (W/Dvd) (Dol) (Dig) Poster
Billie Holiday (1917-59) wore gardenias, was a teenaged prostitute, did drugs, and died with a cop posted outside her hospital bed. But with her gravel-like vocals, and behind-the-beat phrasing, she was one of the greatest singers of the twentieth century. This multimedia collection commemorates her ninetieth birthday. Two CDs contain forty two of her greatest hits, from her 1935 stint with Benny Goodman, to her chilling 1958 strings album, Lady in Satin. It features her signature songs like "Good Morning Heartache," "God Bless the Child," and her unforgettable anti-lynching number "Strange Fruit." The DVD includes film cameos with Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, photographs, posters, rehearsals and interviews with friends and musicians, including a rediscovered 1956 radio broadcast with a young Mike Wallace. Her achy artistry is timeless, and as Ashley Kahn wrote in his superb liner notes, "Billie will be there tonight, tomorrow night and a long time to come." --Eugene Holley, Jr.Blues Music CDs
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