Customer Reviews

Billie's Best

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This is really the best of the great Verve recordings of the 1950s. I will jump out on a limb and say those Verve recordings were surpassed only by the 1930s Columbia/Brunswick sides produced by John Hammond. They work best because like the Hammond sides, Billie here is produced solely as a JAZZ SINGER TOGETHER WITH JAZZ ARTISTS OF HER CALIBER AND OF HER GENERATION, not as a chanteuse, not as a pop singer, and not as an R & B singer, all detours that people who recorded her before and after these sides put her on.

The problem is that a lot of people tend to see Billie Holiday's artistry as a tragedy in progress rather than the work of a great singer and musician who did have a few off microphone problems. Billie Holiday died six or 7 years after the last one of these sides. The magic of these recordings has to do with good production, and good art coming out of that and not the question of the decomposition of her personal life.

Grantz's predecessors and successor were to attempt to take Billie in a more pop direction which just didn't work. That may have had to do with her "health" problems, but it also probably had to do with the crisis of swing-Jazz at the time. I mean in the mid 1950s you had Duke Ellington playing in third-rate amusement parks until Paul Gonzalves turned everything around at Newport. The Grantz verve sides were Billie's music, all the other stuff, the attempts at being like Dinah Washington, the anticommunist songs, the attempts to take her into jumb blues (Billie always detested being called a blues singer because she was not) and so forth were terrible.

In fact, her last efforts like Lady in Satin, remind one of some of the Louis Armstrong band recordings of the 1930s and early 1940s where the magic is the contrast between the swinging soloist and the utterly stiff band and stiffer arrangements.

Curiously, before and after her Verve years, the live recordings we have from her Carnegie Concert and Jazz at the Philharmonic and her singing on the Sound of Jazz have the same glow of Jazz. They resemble these sides more than the recordings she was making.

Billie's real strength is as a Jazz musician, a contributor to the polyphony of Jazz. These are only part of a whole series of recordings that Verve did in these years. At one time they were all available on LP and Tape. I haven't looked around, but one hopes the whole thing is available.

All of these words about Billie needs to be supplemented by some great playing by Ben Webster, Sweets, and other musicians. Much is said about Billie and Prez's collaboration in the 1930s, but on these recordings Mr. Webster recorded as many sides with Billie and developed another darker synergy between the two of them that needs to be listened to. Don't get me wrong, I am a Lester Young fanatic: his framed picture is on my wall and he is the only musician I have ever bought a tee shirt of, LOL. But, the accompaniment and the solos the musicians take here are worth the price alone!

This is a forgotten gem that deserves to shine.

My rating for this is anyone with ears needs to own it!

This lady could sing the blues like no one else. What a beautiful voice! And I love her jazz style and the bands on this compilation of great hits of the 50's. The sound quality is excellent on this single remastered CD which "contains selections from the complete Billie Holiday on Verve 1945-1959," a box set of 10 CDs. This one is definitely a good buy. Some of my favorite songs on the album are "Comes Love", "Stars Fell On Alabama", "East Of The Sun", and "Speak Low". But this is only a small sample of some of Billie's Best, a box of gems from a treasure trove of talent.

It's hard to choose 16 songs and call it "Billie's Best", but this set gives an idea of Billie Holiday's great artistry during the last years of her life. Billie is heard throughout backed by a jazz combo or trio, with occasional (not often enough) saxophones by the likes of "Sweets" Edison and Benny Carter. Her sidemen are first rate and they provide maybe the last ounce of inspiration Billie needs during this difficult time in her life. Sadly, her voice is not what it once was, but some numbers come off better than others, and Verve chooses mostly those that she is comfortable with, some dating bak to her early days at Columbia in the 1930s that she remakes here. On a few numbers her voice is barely audible beyond a croak, but determination pulls her thru and she still manages to wring out many emotional performances here. Sound quality is very good.

It's hard to choose 16 songs and call it "Billie's Best", but this set gives an idea of Billie Holiday's great artistry during the last years of her life. Billie is heard throughout backed by a jazz combo or trio, with occasional (not often enough) saxophones by the likes of "Sweets" Edison and Benny Carter. Her sidemen are first rate and they provide maybe the last ounce of inspiration Billie needs during this difficult time in her life when she made these recordings. Sadly her voice is not what it once was, but some numbers come off better than others, and Verve chooses mostly those that she is comfortable with, some she made from her early days at Columbia in the 1930s that she remakes again here. On a few numbers here her voice is barely audible beyond a croak, but determination has always been her strength and she still manages to wring out one emotional performance after another. Sound quality is very good.

I originally bought this CD in 1992 around the time when my son was born. I played it over and over for him as I rocked him to sleep. When he became a toddler he began to ask for the "baby songs" whenever he needed a little love and cuddling. Even as he got older he would still play it every now and then as kind of a comfort food for his soul. This year he will be 19 so for Christmas I'm buying him his own copy....each one of these recordings is filled with so much depth of emotion and sound that neither of us has ever grown tired of it. Thank you Lady Day for all that you have given to this world.

In my book, and I am hardly alone on this, Billie Holiday is the torch singer's torch singer. Maybe it is the phrasing on her best songs. That well-placed hush. Maybe it is the unbreakable link between her voice when she is on a roll and the arrangements. Hell, maybe in the end it was the dope but, by Jesus, she could sing a modern ballad of love, lost or both like no other. And if it was the dope, let me say this- a `normal' nice singer could sing for a hundred years and never get it right, the way Billie could get it right when she was at her best. Dope or no dope. Was she always at her best? Hell no, as the current compilation makes clear. These recordings done between 1945 and her death in 1959 for Verve show the highs but also the lows as the voice faltered a little and the dope put the nerves on edge toward the end.

Many of the songs on the current compilation are technically sound, a few not, as is to be expected on such re-mastering. You will like Come Rain or Come Shine, Stars Fell On Alabama and Stormy Blues. A tear will come to your eye with Some Other Spring and East of the Sun. The surprise of the package is Speak Low, a sultry song with tropical background beat. That one is very good, indeed.

One last word- I have occasionally mentioned my love of Billie Holiday's music to younger acquaintances. Some of their responses reflecting, I think, the influence of the movie version of her life (Lady Sings the Blues) or some unsympathic black history type views on her life have written her off as an 'addled' doper. Here is my rejoinder- If when I am blue and need a pick me-up and put on a Billie platter (CD)and feel better then, my friends, I do not give a damn about the dope. Enough said.

This is a compilation of Billie's last years, and it only includes tracks recorded from Verve. Unfortunately, these are not even her best tracks from that period! Absolute classics, like 'Autumm in New York' and 'Baby Ant I good to you' are missing. Get Billie's work from Columbia, Decca and Commodore before getting into Verve.

This CD is truly fantastic!! Lady Day singing in great form! I have listened to this CD over and over and never tire of it. There is no such thing as a bad Billie Holiday album! I Love Billie Holiday! I Love this album!! I Love her music 100%! Chow.