Customer Reviews

The Complete Commodore Recordings

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This was my first Billie Holiday recording, so maybe I'm biased. But after hearing lots and lots of Billie since, I still think that this collection has been the most galvanizing of Billie Holiday listening experiences. Her voice was in absolute perfect pitch here. Her voice sounded a bit deeper in previous recordings (unless that's due to the production), and her voice got more ragged as the years progressed. But here she sings like a cornet; the only person that I've heard that tried to sing like her and even came close was probably Dinah Washington (but in her own way). Billie could sing at a pitch that is absolutely exhilarating. If this is what you want to hear, or if this is making you curious, then get these recordings and you'll immediately know what I mean.

If you don't want to spring for this double set (with many alternate takes), then get the "Commodore Master Takes". It has all the songs, but only the popular released versions of them. This ESSENTIAL Billie Holiday. If you're only going to get one Billie Holiday CD, get this or the "Commodore Master Takes". This is timeless stuff that you'll NEVER want to get rid of.

All the old Commodore Jazz recordings have been taken over by MCA Records and an extensive reissue of the labels
recordings is currently underway. One release that will instantly appeal to every Jazz fan is this new Billie Holiday 2 CD set The
Complete Commodore Recordings. Of the 16 tunes featured you actually get a total of 45 tunes recorded between '39-'45
for the Commodore label because all are multiple takes with the exception of "On The Sunny Side Of The Street" & "Fine And
Mellow". Some of the classics included are "I Cover The Waterfront (4 takes)," "Billies Blues" (3 takes), "Embraceable You"
(2 takes) and probably the most controversial classic of all Billie's recordings...The landmark recording "Strange Fruit" offered
in 2 different takes. The booklet is breathtaking! A walloping 40 pages full of great historical info on these recordings and the
great Lady Day during these years is excellent. Rare pix, complete recording data and producers' info on putting this
masterwork together is also included so you get the inside story correctly. All this material has been digitally remastered and
should come as a very big surprise to many when you hear the playback. A must!

If ever a song caused trouble it was "Strange Fruit" Billie had been singing this at Barney Josephens Cafe Society (downtown) for a while before she was able to record it. The record got terrible reviews by the press as it was not a mainstream song and it cost $1.00 (a lot of bread in 1939! However, even though it was not the first song about lynching (Suppertime by Ethel Waters, and a few rare blues dealt with this subject) it was the most visible. "Fine and Mellow" was the big star of the day and was on every jukebox in Harlem in fact Decca tried to steal the song from Billie and had Mamie Smith record it (it failed) The rest of the songs on this track are basic Holiday Night Club fare. These were songs she sang in most clubs and are wonderful to hear again and again.

For New Students of Billie Holiday Listen to Strange Fruit on Commodore and then on Verve. The Commodore is the one that still sends a chill down my spine! For advanced students listen to "I have a right to sing the blues by Billie and then Mildred Bailey. Then you will know without a shadow of a doubt why we still rever Lady when we cant remember Ethel or Mildred what's her name!

This is good music. Billie makes some of her most outstanding performances here. These are the first sessions Billie had where her singing was the key element and the band's performance was subdued in order to sport and clarify her singing. Perhaps, this is a result of the general motion in the recording industry in the mid 1940s to acknowledge the singer, rather than the orchestra. Billie's previous work on Columbia was always issued under the rubric of some orchestra either the Billie Holiday Orchestra or the Teddy Wilson Orchestra, even though the recordings were done by whatever pickup group of members of the Basie Band or other big bands were in town at the moment. Instead of the kind of intros that we hear on the Commodore Sides, the band plays the whole tune a time or two before we hear the voice. This was just what people bought records for before the 1940s when the singer played a smaller role in all jazz and popular music.

On these Commodore siese, we have a sustained group of performers who work with Billie on and off record, arrangements that seem to be more developed, and openings that seem to lead up right to her voice.

Of course, "Strange Fruit" had a big political and artistic impact at the time, but I don't think it measures up as a performance to a number of the Jazz tunes on the CD. Myself, I tend to see it, along with John Hammond Sr. whom I otherwise detest in many regards, as part of an evolution of Billie away from being a Jazz singer towards seeing herself as more of a chanteuse of dramatic songs.

Looking at her whole work, I think Billie did best when she was in a fully jazz environment and when she was recorded with musicians whose work challenged her. This was the case in the many recordings she did for Columbia in the 1930s and 1940s, To a certain extent this is also true in records she made in the early 1950s for Verve with Ben Webster and Sweets Edison presiding.

The Commodore recordings are great. However, nothing compares except perhaps Louis Armstrong's working on pop tunes between 1928 and 1932 to the Columbia sides Billie cut with the likes of Buck Clayton, Lester Young, Johnny Hodges, Benny Goodman, Ben Webster, Freddie Green, Bunny Berrigan, etc. Nothing. Billie was more alive, her voice was stronger, there was more joy in her heart, and no heroin in her bloodstream. Above all, on these sessions she was challenged by a total jazz environment, Jazz masters of her calibre, and an improvisational freedom to the most of the Columbia sessions that seems to have died by the time we get to these Commodore recordings.

Just one word about Mildred Bailey. Yes, Billie's work was a triumph compared to Mildred's. One can appreciate that because Bailey was jealous and spiteful to Billie when Billie first came on the scene. Famously, Bailey hired Billie's mother who catered parties, to cater one of her own parties in the early 1930s, knowing Billie's mother would bring Billie along to help serve the food to her guests. Bailey alledgedly gloated to her guests at the scene of Billie Holiday in a maid's uniform serving her guests and thus put in "her place." That wasn't nice.

One gets the idea that Bailey who had significant Native American ancestry and who was the first well known white female Jazz singer trying to sing in Black style (Bailey had started doing this shortly after World War I), was a bit touchy about her own whiteness. In an age before television, Bailey continued to have fans white and Black who did not know she was white. This remains true even recently when I have loaned tapes of Mildred to other African Americans without any liner notes or anything and had them ask why they had never heard of this great Black singer.

However, I do find it distressing that Mildred Bailey seems to be so forgotten. She was the first prominent female band singer in Jazz. She was and is fun to listen to and a great voice. Mildred was actually able to swing and swing hard even with Paul Whiteman. She produced masterpieces using some of the same small groups as Billie's for HER Columbia recordings, although Baily semed to prefer Herschal Evans to Lester Young. Bailey was also pretty out front for the time as a white female singer performing with an all black combo--"Mildred Baily and Her Oxford Browns." Mildred was simply magnificent in the small combos her husband Red Novro organized, She had a sense of humor about her performances and a bit of salaciousness that you won't find in Billie's recordings.

I don't think it was just out of sentimentality, but in tribute to her artistry, that Sinatra and Bing Crosby (who owed his career to Bailey's bringing him in contact with Whiteman)spent thousands of dollars helping her out in the last years of her life when health problems and the end of her career led her to very hard times.

More people need to listen to Mildred Bailey. I think I will put one of the Commodore disks and one of my Mildred Bailey disks on the CD player now and let the random mix blend all those good sounds together.

This is an essentail CD set for any Billie Holiday(perhaphs the only more essential set is her two CD set "The Complete Decca Recordings")fan it includes the classic "Strange Fruit" outtakes of almost every songs, and every song she made into a standard. Billie Holiday's voice had not yet been effected by her drug habbit, so you'll hear nothing but her gorgious sensual and at times sad and longing voice. Holiday was the quintessential torch singer, and this two CD set of all her Commadore seesions proves what a great torch singer she was. An excellent CD.

The remastering is spectacular, great sound, better than what I expected. Includes a nice booklet with over 40 pages and session details. A casual fan will probably prefer to buy the master takes CD instead. The only thing about this CD I dont like is that hey should have put the alternates takes at the end, and all the master takes in sequence. But it is a stellar reissue all around.

Billie Holiday. What more is there to say about a jazz singer. I guess it's nice that you can get the "Complete Commodore Recordings", but I really see this as GRP's $ & muscle to acquire a legitimate artist for their label. The photos in the booklet are great. To me the liner notes are suspect. Regarding "Strange Fruit", Stuart Nicholson states that, "... it wasn't until 1995 that another singer dared record it...". In 1990, I purchased an equally (IMHO) haunting version of the song by Nina Simon. Mr. Nicholson needs to do more research.

I am enjoying the C D very much but was slightly disconcerted to see that each song had about 3 versions or 4 versions even. This should be made clear to future purchasers.

enjoy the alternative takes and for me the additional cost is worth it...all takes contained here are interesting.
This period and group of recordings should not to be missed by listeners, coming after Columbia into the Decca period ..this is a nice package with a 40 page book showcasing intimacy.

I wish to make a correction to my previous review. I realize that I mispelled Nina's last name. The correct spelling is Simone. So, if you're looking for another version of "Strange Fruit", search for Nina Simone.