*The Torch Singer's Torch Singer -The Sixtieth Anniversary Of Her Death-Lady Day-Billie Holiday- She Took Our Pain Away Despite Her Own Pains

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Billie Holiday performing Strange Fruit.

DVD REVIEW

Billie’s Best, Polygram Records, 1992

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 with Diana Ross) or some unsympathetic black history 'uplift' 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.

On The Sixtieth Anniversary Of Her Death-Lady Day-Billie Holiday- She Took Our Pain Away Despite Her Own Pains- *Lady Sings The Blues-Billie Holiday, Natch

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Billie Holiday performing Strange Fruit.

CD REVIEW

The Quintessential Billie Holiday, Volume 9, (1940-1942) Billie Holiday, Columbia, 1991

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? These recordings done between 1940 and 1942 show the highs. Billie had mastered her trade.

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 Am I Blue and In My Solitude. Can anyone every do a Cole Porter song better than Billie on Let's Do It. Or the phrasing of Johnny Mercer's Mandy and Me. Damn.

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 with Diana Ross) or some unsympathetic black history 'up lift' 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.

The Quintessential Billie Holiday, Volume 6, (1938) Billie Holiday, Columbia, 1991


Many of the songs on this compilation are technically sound, a few not, as is to be expected on such re-mastering. For examples of what I mean by what I said in the first paragraph of this review check out the playfulness of You Go to My Head and If I Were You. The sentiment of The Very Thought of You and I Got a Date With A Dream. Hey, I don’t even usually like these kinds of songs composed by the masters of Tin Pan Alley but they had me had me humming along. That tells the tale here.

*A Mixed Bag Musical Potpourri-Jazz, Blues, Gospel, Rock And Rockabilly-Dinah Washington

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Dinah Washington Doing "Stormy Weather".

Nothin’ Could Be Finah Than Dinah

Dinah Jams, Dinah Washington and various artists, Polygram Records, 1990

I admit to a very spotty interest in jazz over my life time and while I have always loved those 1940’s swing bands, like that of Benny Goodman, it was only with the celebration of the centennial of Duke Ellington’s birth in 1999 that I got a little more serious about this genre. Ken Burns’ “Jazz” series for PBS gave me another boost. Still and all there are huge gaps in my knowledge and appreciation of the classic jazz tradition. This is a little odd in that there is a certain convergence between jazz and my favorite musical genre, the blues. The artist under review here exemplifies both those traditions, although she was not known as a jazz singer, as such. All I know is I like what I hear here.

And what is that? Well, how about a very salacious “Lover Come Back To Me”, a heartfelt turn on the Johnny Mercer tune “Come Rain Or Come Shine”, a seemingly created for her style Cole Porter classic “ I’ve Got You Under My Skin” and a knock out “You Go To My Head”. Hell, even if you don’t a thing about jazz you know Dinah has got that “thing”.

I've Got You Under My Skin Lyrics

Ive got you under my skin
Ive got you deep in the heart of me
So deep in my heart, that youre really a part of me
Ive got you under my skin

Ive tried so not to give in
Ive said to myself this affair never will go so well
But why should I try to resist, when baby will I know than well
That Ive got you under my skin

Id sacrifice anything come what might
For the sake of having you near
In spite of a warning voice that comes in the night
And repeats, repeats in my ear

Dont you know you fool, you never can win
Use your mentality, wake up to reality
But each time I do, just the thought of you
Makes me stop before I begin
cause Ive got you under my skin

***The American Songbook Pantheon- The Music Of Irving Berlin.

Click On Title To Link To An Irving Berlin Lyrics Website.

CD Review

Irving Berlin: A Hundred Years, Irving Berlin compositions as performed by various artists, Columbia Record Company, 1988

I have been running through the legends of folk music, the blues, rock and assorted other genres over the past period. Not intentionally, at least I do not think that this was my intention at the start, I have reviewed a number of musicians, composers and recording artists who have been influential in the preservation of American roots music. You know, names like Pete Seeger, The Lomaxes, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Willie Dixon, Sam Phillips and, probably, a dozen more who have sung, recorded produced or preserved parts of what is termed “the American Songbook”. These names, however, are hardly all-inclusive, as this review will try to make clear. The American Songbook is a “big tent” operation that extends back to the times of Stephan Foster in the 19th century, if not before, and is brought up to date by the likes of Mr. Seeger and Mr. Dylan. Along the way, including a significant part of the 20th century, Irving Berlin did more than his fair share of helping to fill that book.

We could go on and on about who should be or not be, beyond the names mentioned above, included in the American Songbook pantheon. However, there is no question, whether you tastes run to Tin Pin Alley tunes or not that Irving Berlin is up on that first level. This little compilation by Columbia Records put out some years ago both honors him on his 100th birthday and can serve as a primer for those unfamiliar with Mr. Berlin’s work. Although if you have been the least bit conscious, or are very, very young, you already ‘know’ many of these songs, if not their author.

A Berlin biography is beyond the scope of this little review but needless to say this son of immigrants caught at least a portion of what America meant to both immigrant and native alike at a time when assimilation into American society, its manners and mores was a more pressing issue than today. Berlin’s hey days were in the 1930’s and 1940’s and he is forever tied in memory to such Great Depression/World War II Broadway music as “Putting On The Ritz”, “Cheek To Cheek”, “How Deep Is The Ocean”, “’I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm” and a slew of other classics included here. And done by the likes of Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Billie Holiday, Etherl Merman, Ethel Waters and a host of others, all famous in their time for singing whatever Mr. Berlin put before them, gladly. This is the music your parents or grandparents hummed back in the days. On this compilation it seems that Columbia has gone out of its way, way out of its way to get the best renditions by the most definitive artists to present these tunes.

Irving Berlin is also, whether the fact is well-known now or not, closely associated with popular American patriotic songs like “God Bless America”. He is also associated with novelty songs like “White Christmas”, “Easter Parade”, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” and “Let’s Have Another Cup Of Coffee”. Now some of this is not to my taste and, perhaps, not to yours. Some of the patriotic stuff is way overblown. And a few tunes have not aged well. Those are separate, more political questions, that can be more properly addressed elsewhere. But hear me out. The next time some asks Irving who? Or I don’t know his work? Just start humming “White Christmas”, or the like. Berlin may not be my top candidate for Number One composer in the American Songbook but he belongs in the select company of that pantheon.

*A Musical Change Of Pace- Tin Pan Alley-Cole Porter

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Cole Porter's "Anything Goes".

Night And Day, Indeed

CD Review

Night And Day: The Cole Porter Songbook, various artists, Polydor, 1990

Billie Holiday. That is the name, voice and magic that I conjure up when I hear the name Cole Porter and his tasty and tasteful lyrics that evoke a simpler time, a time of my parents’ generation rather than my own. The generation that went through the last depression, the Great Depression of the 1930’s and then fought World War II successfully. Billie, thus, is something a thread that carries these tunes to my generation, the generation of the 1960’s. In fact, I believe the first time I recognized Cole Porter songs (although I probably hear then as background music on the radio in the old days) was on Billie’s “Night And Day” album of Porter tunes.

Here though, other voices, perhaps more representative of Porter’s work such as his Broadway show tunes, are featured. Like the slyly salacious “Love For Sale”. Or the agitated longing of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”. How about the peppy “Anything Goes”. Or “It’s De-Lovely”. Or the very lyric-driven “Let’s Fall In Love”. And, of course, the dreamy title track “Night And Day”. So if you want to know what your parents (or grandparents) listened to while they were spoonin’ here is your stop.

"Love For Sale"

When the only sound on the empty street
is the heavy tread of the heavy feet
that belong to a lonesome cop
I open shop

The moon so long has been gazing down
on the warward ways of this wayward town
my smile becomes a smirk, I go to work

Love for sale
appetizing young love for sale
love thats fresh and still unspoiled
love thats only slightly soiled
love for sale

who will buy
who would like to sample my supply
who's prepared to pay the price
for a trip to paradise
love for sale

let the poets pipe of love
in their childish ways
I know every type of love
better far than they
if you want the thrill of love
I have been through the mill of love
old love
new love
every love but true love

love for sale
appetizing young love for sale
if you want to buy my wares follow me and clime the stairs
love for sale

*A Musical Change Of Pace- Tin Pan Alley-George Gershwin

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Billie Holiday Doing George Gershwin's "Summertime".

CD REVIEWS

The Great Songs Of George Gershwin, various artist, Columbia Legacy, 1998

George Gershwin's short but productive career has always been associated in my mind with the Broadway musical. Much more so than that another composer from that same period of the 1930's-1940's whom I recently reviewed in this space, Cole Porter. They both worked this milieu but I always think more of New York (or Paris) cabarets and cafés with Porter's work and the theater with Gershwin (and I will tag along his brother, Ira, here as well). Perhaps, it's because George Gershwin's name is most associated historically with the classic Broadway black musical "Porgy and Bess". In any case this little CD is filled with songs by many well-known singers who won their spurs in Broadway productions of his work, or wished they had.

So here we have Billie Holiday doing her trademark "Summertime" from that "Porgy and Bess" mentioned above. The virtuoso pianist Teddy Wilson doing "Embraceable You". The underrated Mildred Bailey on " They Can't Take That Away From You". The recently departed Mel Torme doing "Isn't It A Pity" and the still legendary Tony Bennett on "Fascinatin' Rhythm" (from Lady, Be Good). If your thing is Gershwin show tunes you have definitely come to the right address.

George Gershwin
Summertime lyrics

Summertime,
And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high

Oh, Your daddy's rich
And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby
Don't you cry

One of these mornings
You're going to rise up singing
Then you'll spread your wings
And you'll take to the sky

But until that morning
There's a'nothing can harm you
With your daddy and mammy standing by

Summertime,
And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high

Your daddy's rich
And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby
Don't you cry