Lady in Autumn: Bill Holiday in the '50s

When I first heard recordings of Billie Holiday back when I was in college, I didn't quite know what to think, and frankly I wasn't sure what all the fuss was about.  As time passed, however, my tastes and opinions changed and Holiday became one of my favorite singers.  Her recording career spanned approximately 25 years and almost everything, including outtakes, is available on CD and/or mp3.  Although not to everyone's taste and musically probably Holiday's most controversial period, I am partial to many of the recordings she made at the tail end of her career in the 1950s.

Most of Holiday's 1950's recordings were for Norman Granz on either his Clef or Verve label.  Much of what attracts me to these recordings are the accompanists and arrangements.  These were typically small group sessions and included some of the top instrumentalists of the day.  The repertoire consisted mostly of standards and reworkings of songs the singer had recorded before.  Scott Yanow echoed the sentiments of many critics when he wrote that during this period Holiday was "sounding beaten down by life.  Her emotional intensity had grown but her voice was slipping."  Slipping voice or not, Billie Holiday could still do wonderful things to a song that no other singer could.  If you are interested in the Verve/Clef recordings you can take your pick of how much you want.  Available are a complete 10-cd set of everything Holiday recorded during the Verve years, a 6-cd set of master takes, and a 2-cd "Best Of" set (My apologies to Verve for using the title of the 2-disc set as my title for this post). Of course several individual discs are available as well.
















The first video is Lady singing "Autumn in New York, which was recorded in her first sessions for Granz in 1952.  She was accompanied by Oscar Peterson (p), Barney Kessel (g), Ra Brown (b), & Alvin Stoller (d). This rendition was featured in Ken Burn's Jazz series with critic Gerald Early declaring that it was the most beautiful version of the song he had ever heard in his life.  I wouldn't argue.



Also included in these 1952 sessions was "Tenderly" with Holiday accompanied by the same rhythm section, plus Charlie Shavers on Trumpet and Flip Phillips on tenor.



Both of these recordings as well as several other gems are available on the Verve single-disc release Solitude.












The next video of "I Didn't Know What Time it Was" is from another of the single Verve discs that gets high marks from the critics, Songs for Distingue' Lovers, which the authors of the Penguin Guide described as "front-rank."
On this album Holiday was again accompanied by another set of heavy-weight instrumentalists: Ben Webster (tenor saxophone);
Harry "Sweets" Edison (trumpet);
Jimmie Rowles (piano);
Barney Kessel (guitar);
Red Mitchell (bass);
Larry Bunker, Alvin Stoller (drums)




Finally, here is a wonderful, mellow version of "Embraceable You."  I'm not totally sure of the lineup of instrumentalist, but I think it is the same as "I Didn't Know What Time it Was."  Her chops might not have been the same in the '50s as they were earlier, but with the right accompanists and arrangements, Billie could still bring it.