Customer Reviews

Complete Verve Studio Master Takes

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

The last phase of Billie Holiday's career is captured here in great sound (the very slight hiss means they didn't take off a layer of sound just to get pristine silent background, a good sign, a mistake Japanese issues often make). With a return to great jazz backup, as in her 30s recordings (arguably the greatest jazz/popular recordings ever made), Holiday isn't in great voice and she sometimes isn't up to the material, which is much better than the material she was handed in the 30s. But that's a rare sometimes, and her take on anything is always interesting. And often great. She completely remakes "Love for Sale" (which was a rather silly risque Porter number til she took it on) or "Solitude", unearthing colors the composers likely didn't realize they'd buried there; much as her daughters Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone would do so often after her. The damage she had done to her instrument and herself, as well as the damage the world inflicted on her, shows and sometimes she is using it and sometimes it is using her. On a few cuts you're listening to a woman in great pain, and it's not art; it becomes voyeurism. In the end, it's an essential collection, and preferable to the fuller complete collection - her false takes in this period aren't useful, as the 30s outtakes were, where nothing she did was the same twice. The packaging is silly, and has nothing to do with her style; the photo on the inside front cover is just ugly, though there is an Aztec quality to it that would be interesting if there was anything Aztec about Holiday. She was also very beautiful and a chameleon (at different times, she looked Chinese, African, patrician, no two photos from different shoots look the same), which highlights her essential nature as an actress. The greatest singing actress, in fact. But the perfumed soap tin box doesn't disguise the unique music inside.

Okay, the music is flawless. Nothing needs to be said.

And yes, the packaging is horrible. However, it's not the functionaliy of the packaging the irks me (even though this is also poor). My wife and I are both designers, and nothing about the packaging is aesthetically cohesive. The disc art looks like it can also be used on an XTC or Theivery Corporation album (or maybe it was stolen from one). The photos are very unflattering. All of this would not be such a crime if it wasn't coming from a period and label that wasn't known for classic, trend-setting and influential album covers. It honestly looks as if different people designed parts of the package without seeing what the other was doing.

Oh well, it's going right on my iPod anyway where I'll swap out the art for something nicer. Here is a great hint/trick for fellow iPod jazzers....

Change your encode settings to MONO on anything recorded before 1958. Stereo wasn't used until 1958, and changing the setting to MONO will make the file half the size with 0% loss of quality. (The "automatic" setting in iTunes cannot differentiate mono from stereo, so you need to do this manually.) If your entire iPod is pre-1958, you will get twice as much music on it.

This review is not about the packaging (besides, it's not the worst even though whoever decided to glue the acordion like disc holder to the metal box wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, and whoever designed the art work wasn't the brightest bulb in the lamp).

This is strictly on the music alone. If this was on the Verve & Cleff material only, this would be getting a 5 star rating. On the first 5 discs, she hadn't totally messed up her vocal chords on cigarettes and heroin yet. Unfortunately, Verve (originally owned by Polygram, now owned by UMG) also owned MGM, and to live up to the complete angle, they had to release the MGM (Ray Ellis conducted / arranged / produced) album simply titled Billie Holiday. This section got worst for 2 reasons. Instead of having really great jazz artists, you have strings (which just doesn't work). Also (Like Lady In Satin), her voice has had it.

All the other discs (and actually the first 4 songs on disc 6) are all very good, but once you start to hear All The Way, it becomes dificult to listen to (another similarity to Lady in Satin). Is it worth the price for the poor packaging and the imfamous MGM album? From me, you'll get a resounding YES. On the other discs, Billie is in good voice, and the musicians are hot. This is perfect for the person who doesn't want all the alternate tracks that you get in the Complete Verve, and feel that the 2 disc set is too skimpy.

Cut down to 6 discs...from the original 10 collection...these studio sides of Billie from the 1950's is a treasure chest of standards..Arguably,some consider her finest period.

Gone are the alternate takes and live material that comprised much of the hefty 10 box set..the focus is on

the studio sessions with such greats as Ben Webster and Sweets Edison...

Indeed she was a Lady In Autumn in this era but quality throughout on these standards..The phrasing and intonations are special.

Like The Charlie Parker set,this is handomely packaged despite the criticism of the tin box and falling apart of the book etc...

It is not that shoddy...

Add to your collection if you must if you want to go further than the compilation Lady In Autumn from this time period and don't mind not having the alternative sides and live material found elsewhere.

The music is great.

The packaging is annoying though. It consists of a metal box, with each CD placed on a glossy silver colored, flimsy cardboard tray that folds up and out (accordion style). The tray cannot be removed because it's glued to the bottom of the metal box. Also, the top of the tray has a sleeve into which the booklet is placed. The sleeve has a zig-zag pattern cut out vertically along its left-hand edge, making it difficult to replace the booklet without getting it stuck on the zig-zagged cardboard protrusions. Also, the art work is bad (something like what you might expect to see at a junior high school art show), especially the drawing of Billie Holiday that greets you when you open the box up (this is probably the most unflattering picture of Ms. Holiday I've ever encountered - why not just use a nice photograph of her?? - there are plenty of those.

It would've been nice if Verve had taken a more understated approach and packaged the set in a simple, yet sturdy, cardboard box with tasteful graphics, with each disc inside the box in its own separate removable cardboard sleeve (perhaps with the front of each cardboard CD sleeve having a reproduction of the original artwork from an old record cover - something relevant to the music on the CD - on the front and a detailed track listing on the back - i.e., each CD sleeve would be like a mini LP sleeve). Something like that would have been nice, I think.

Anyway, other than the packaging, the set is great and worth getting if you enjoy Billy Holiday.

The music is absolutely great and I love these disc.

BUT, the tin box and the packaging is beyond my worst imagination. The picture they choose for Lady Day and the way they put it---I am so angry with it that the first thing I did was to repachaging these discs myself....

It is a crime against the great music.....

I bought this for my father for Christmas.

He really appreciates this, is a pretty good collection.

The packaging and cd's are in perfect condition, I'm really happy about this deal.

Yes, the music is wonderful. If you love Billie Holiday's music, then you'll love listening to this set. I'm enjoying it immensely.

HOWEVER, as has been noted already, the packaging is the worst I've ever seen. This set is all about being completely uninformative and unusable. There is the fold-out accordion-style holder for the discs, which is very cumbersome. Want to know what the songs are on which disc? Good luck! First of all, the discs are not labeled, save for the tiny writing around the spindle hole in the center of the disc. Once you figure out which disc is which you'll then need to extricate the booklet from the first leaf of the fold-out accordion holder. I was not able to get my booklet out, it seems that it was glued in place and is now worse for wear after a tug of war getting it out.

And, if the annoyances of trying to actually use this set is not enough, what is with the completely inappropriate design? There is the worst photo of Billie Holiday ever taken that you will see when you open the tin box and then there is the colorful motifs of daisies and sunshine on each of the discs which begs the question, what was the designer thinking? UMG, owner of Verve, has invested a lot of effort, and is presumably charging you, the buyer, a lot of money for gratuitous and inappropriate design indulgence and impulsive whims of clueless designers. I give this two stars - the music deserved five stars but the packaging is so insulting and unusable that I have to knock it down to two stars. Now that I've ripped it into iTunes, I will not be struggling with trying to play these CDs.

I'm so disappointed with the packaging that I haven't even listened to the CDs yet; for one thing, there's no booklet whatsoever (and I bought this new, at full-price, not second-hand), so I have no idea what the tracks are. I'll be able to find out, sure, but still, it's very annoying. Second of all, I'm not sure if this is with all the boxsets, or just mine, but the CDs themselves have absolutely no design on them, so it's impossible to know which side is the playing side except by trial and error. I don't think I've ever seen something so stupid or careless before. What a huge disappointment. I'm giving this one star, even though I'm sure the music is sublime, because I feel cheated, literally. Complete Verve Studio Master Takes