Customer Reviews

Ken Burns JAZZ Collection: Billie Holiday

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Billie Holiday's tumultuous personal life may have led to her death at age 44, yet 'Lady Day' was a consistently productive recording artist over the course of an approximately quarter-century-long career that ended just before she passed in 1959.

Most historians would agree that Billie's career neatly divides into three phases. Her first decade in the limelight was divided between sessions for labels presently available through Sony and Commodore. Though the quality of the tunes she recorded varied widely, these small-group sessions featured Billie with some of the greatest jazz musicians of the era (Lester Young, etc). She spent the last half of the 1940s recording more commercial sessions for Decca (often marked by dated, syrupy pop orchestration). The quality of the accompiament may have left a lot to be desired, but Billie's vocals usually transcended her surroundings.

Her last decade found Lady Day mostly back in all-star combo settings for Verve, or with orchestral accompiament for her last two albums (e.g., LADY IN SATIN). Fans continue to argue about whether Billie's voice in her final years became a shadow of its former self, or if she compensated for any loss in technique with more emotively-satisfying performances. My opinion is: sometimes the former, often the latter.

What is admirable about this collection is that it provides enough examples of each era to give the listener a starting point to explore your preferred periods in more depth later, or to have this CD be a decent representation of her career for those on a tighter budget. Given just one CD's worth of time to fill, the compilers of this CD seem to have done as good a job as possible of hitting the high notes of Billie's remarkable career.

I'm generally quite pleased with the CD, and feel it nicely covered the three periods in Billie's artistic life. It is a fine CD for a listener just beginning to experience Billie's astonishing music. Billie clearly portrays multiple and often conflicting emotions and blends them with her overpowering musical instinct.

Billie was surrounded by a perpetual hall-of-fame of jazz instrumentalists such as Benny Goodman, Lester Young and many others. You'll hear these superstars on this and other Holiday CDs on both accompanyment and solo.

There is a sound quality problem with loud hiss on the first two tracks. I own the referenced Columbia CDs that contain the original remastering of these two songs, "I Cried for You" and "What a Little Moonlight Can Do." The hiss is greatly reduced on these earlier CDs, but the upper frequencies of the music are somewhat surpressed as well. I prefer to listen to these songs on the earlier recordings.

The CD cover and jewel box liner contains the phrase "Ken Burns Jazz." Some might view this cover as implying that the album has at least Mr. Burns's imprimatur, if not his possession. To my ears, this CD contains a personal artistic statement of Billie Holiday and her accompanying artists. Secondarily, but most importantly, this music is possessed in the minds and hearts of all her listeners, past, present, and future. Thank Ken Burns for his documentary, but have a listen to Billie for yourselves.

Kudos for compiling a CD that captures Billie at all phases of her career. This set gives an insight into how Billie evolved as a singer over time. It's like reading a book of her life. It's also a first that it manages to pick songs from all the different record labels she recorded on. Theres a plethora of moods and tempos established by the songs here, depending which phase of Billie's career you are listening. Many will like (and be surprised by) the fast tempo of the swing tunes, such as "I Cried For You" and "What A Little Moonlight Can Do". For those who are not familiar with Billie's stuff from the '30s, it's amazing to hear her sing with so much joy and life. Over time Billie's singing grew increasingly languid and the pace slower, and this CD illustrates that change, but that doesn't diminish her growth as an artist.

Most of the song choices are indelibly linked to Lady Day. It wasn't until the last few years of her life that her voice truly faltered. Still you cannot but be amazed by the soulfulness that Billie invests each song. Whatever technical shortcomings she developed by the ravages of her well-known drug abuse, she compensates that with her unique interpretive ability and emotional commitment to each song. None is more dramatically highlighted than "You've Changed" (recorded a year before she died). Here she still manages to blow you away by its emotional wallop. I am still floored everytime I hear this piece. The strings and arrangements of Ray Ellis only accentuates the tragic circumstances of this song. I often wonder what kind of artist Billie would become had she not gotten involved with drugs and booze, but that's a moot point. She has left us a rich aural treasure. Lay in peace, Lady.

FANTASTIC compilation covering the career of the fabulous and legendary jazz vocalist Billie Holiday. No one (before or since) has ever interpreted a song with the same gut-wrenching sadness or passion as Lady Day--she makes you FEEL, I mean REALLY FEEL, what it feels like to be in her "Solitude," as she sings in one of her masterpieces. This disc features some of the best versions of all the songs she's become synonymous with, including her self-penned trademark song "God Bless The Child," as well as "Lover Man," "Strange Fruit," and a beautifully haunting rendition of "You've Changed," recorded near the end of her life. She turns the uiversal feelings of pain and longing into art that anyone who has ever been in or fallen out of love can relate to. Long live Lady Day!

You can't quibble with the songs selected to represent Lady Day's recorded career, especially when among them are "Strange Fruit," "Yesterdays," "Solitude," "God Bless the Child," "Gloomy Sunday," and "Fine and Mellow." But I'm afraid the final effect of this "Definitive" edition is to minimize Holiday's art by telescoping it on a single disc which, when played back, calls more attention to the fluctuations of her voice than to the interpretations and performances themselves. First we're reminded that the technology is inadequate to the task of capturing her youthful sound, and then it begins to become apparent that she cannot conceal her tired, failing voice from the sensitive microphones and improved recording equipment of the 1950s.

To my ears, the Columbia vinyls make her sound richer, fuller, more "present"--even in the 1930s--than the digital remastering served up on this anthology. I also find it regrettable that the enclosed booklet, while documenting dates and musicians, offers no justification for song selections. I can imagine many among the curious and unitiated hearing little more than distracting surface noise on the first three recordings and wondering about the sub-studio quality of a couple of the later selections. Finally, I have to question a musical assessment that praises her as someone who could "make a song her own by imposing her personality on it."

If there's any singer who resisted the temptation to subjugate her material to the artist's ego, it's Billie. No singer is so natural, so transparent, so unforced. When she sings, here's nothing between us and the naked emotion of the song. The music and poetry issue from her lips as freely as, well, one of God's own children.

Because Billie Holiday is an esteemed artist that recorded so many songs in her long career, there is never a shortage of compilations and greatest hits albums that flood the music market monthly (due in part to a saturation of Columbia/Legacy releases). Needless to say, many of these albums disappoint for one reason or another, usually because one suffers from the wanton need of being the authoritative, definitive "only album you need to own". Any true fan, however, knows that a single collection is never sufficient in providing an ideal overview of a favoured artist. With artists like Billie Holiday, it is indeed necessary for one to possess a varied collection of works in order to be able to appreciate her virtuosity. Ken Burns succeeds in both introducing this troubled voice to the newcomer, as well as keeping the more intuned entertained with material that is both classic and rare, and not strictly exclusive of Columbia. Songs like "God Bless the Child" "Autumn in New York" and " " brilliantly showcase Holiday's voice as a melodic, trumpet-like instrument, while "Strange Fruit" is as engaging for precisely the opposite reason. Her voice on this track is so melancholic and laden with distress, that one hardly need resort to their imagination for a depiction of the grisliness of a lynching that she so picaresquely describes. This is indeed a beautiful song whose modus operandi it is to evoke an emotion of regret for humankind in general. This particular version of the song is especially noteworthy, due to an elaborated piano solo which perfectly sets the mood for Holiday's horrific lyrics. Burns's collection encompasses a vast number of Holiday's recording eras, and from start to finish, it is a testament to the power of her voice and the undeniable crux that her contributions have had on jazz itself.

IGNORE all the reviewers who complain about sound quality. None of these songs were copied from "bad masters". These songs (regardless of sound quality) were picked because THEY ARE THE BEST. Gloomy Sunday, Strange Fruit, Autumn in New York(ohhh piano) and Solitude are absolute gems. I couldn't possibly say enough..I love haunting, sad, beautiful music. However, there is a better version of Yesterdays(with a organ accompaniment) on the Billie Holiday Verve Jazz Masters 12 release. But if you like Billie's sad stuff(how could you not?) this is the best collection I have seen. Oh yes and I looovvee the sound of old recordings--the way the lack of any high end makes the piano just melt together and the percusive thump of the bass and piano and guitar just melting...the sound melts...cherish the low-fi...cuz you wont ever hear like that again.

There is nothing definitive about this CD. Neither the song selection, liner notes, photos nor packaging distinguish this product from any other run of the mill "best of" Billie Holliday CD out there. I was sorely disappointed.

The relatively short number of songs span so much time on this "best of" - the arrangements, Billie's voice, recording style, and song quality all vary so drastically - as another reviewer eluded to, you don't get any sense at all why Billie Holliday was important - what made her music so great.

Moreover, as numerous other reviewers have eluded to, the sound quality of the first four tracks is TERRIBLE. Heed their words, because I didn't. I'm no audiophile, but the amount of hiss - which actually sounds like it was ENHANCED on these tracks - makes them utterly unlistenable.

I've heard some of these tracks on other compilations and they sounded fine - there is no reason in the world they need to sound like that. With the sound technology today, you could have made them sound better - and at the very least, not WORSE. What gives? Is it a joke?

Save your money and buy one of the many good anthology/box set CDs - that cover the different "eras" of her recordings - as an introduction to Lady Day. The only real way to be "introduced" to Billie Holliday. The Complete Decca Recordings is Fantastic! I'd give that a 5 star.

I'm opening new doors with the history of jazz and the finer music that laid some foundations when this was a breaking art form. It's good us jazz neo-phytes have the "Ken Burns" Jazz series spurned from his documentary to get us started. I've got Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, and Billie Holiday, and the Holiday CD is my favorite of the three. It doesn't suffer from the downfall of many career encompassing compilations suffer...that is the need to include lesser works from all periods of the artist's life. This could be because Holiday's tragic life was probably cut down before her time due to her hard lifestyle.

The first two tracks carry an old phonographic hiss, which instead of detracting from the listen, to me quite enhances it. It plays along well with the music from another speakeasy time. It puts me there. The album's strongest track is "Strange Fruit" which is unbelievably sublime in its social consciousness mixed with the art of jazz. This, in my mind, is what elevates Billie Holiday's music above Ella Fitzgerald. Holiday's smoky atmosphere-drenched voice emotes all the pain, all the urgency, all the character, that jazz and blues is known for. Solitude is another sublime track.

Billie Holiday says that, "Blues is kind of a mixed up thing, you just have to feel it" on track 18 "Fine and Mellow". With her beyond exceptional talent, that's just what you end up doing with her music, you feel it right along with her. With the excellent liner notes laying out the events of her life, this CD is an excellent buy. The only problem that remains is, which Ken Burns Jazz CD to get next...will it be Herbie Hancock, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker? I'll let you know; meanwhile I'll be listening to this CD. Caio.

I am not a jazz or music expert, but Billie Holiday is my favorite vocalist, period. However, most of the other collections I have of hers (and admittedly, it's pretty limited) seem unable to divorce her public persona from her music. We know about her personal struggles, and it almost seems as if other producers have arranged her songs to reflect the inevitable downward spiral we know will come.

This album, however, hits the perfect Billie Holiday pitch. For the first few songs, she's young, maybe slightly hopeful, but definitely a little haunted. For the bulk of the songs in the middle, she's romantic, but edgy with cynicism about her experiences and weaknesses. The tragedy seems to have arrived by the last three tracks, but even still, it's not so hopeless that it's painful to listen to.

"Solitude", "Autumn in New York", "Traveling Light" and "Gloomy Sunday" are my favorites here. If I have any complaints about this release, it's that it whets my appetite for more.