You Go to My Head - Billie Holiday, Coots, J. Fred
You Turned the Tables on Me - Billie Holiday, Alter, Louis
Easy to Love - Billie Holiday, Porter, Cole
These Foolish Things - Billie Holiday, Link, Harry
I Only Have Eyes for You - Billie Holiday, Dubin, Al
Solitude - Billie Holiday, DeLande, Edgar
Everything I Have Is Yours - Billie Holiday, Adamson, Harold
Love for Sale - Billie Holiday, Porter, Cole
Moonglow - Billie Holiday, DeLande, Edgar
Tenderly - Billie Holiday, Gross, Walter [1]
If the Moon Turns Green - Billie Holiday, Coates, Paul
Remember - Billie Holiday, Berlin, Irving
Autumn in New York - Billie Holiday, Duke, Vernon
My Man - Billie Holiday, Charles, Jacques
Lover, Come Back to Me - Billie Holiday, Hammerstein, Oscar
Stormy Weather - Billie Holiday, Arlen, Harold
Yesterdays - Billie Holiday, Harbach, Otto
He's Funny That Way - Billie Holiday, Moret, Neil
I Can't Face the Music - Billie Holiday, Bloom, Rube
Track Listings (17) - Disc #2
How Deep Is the Ocean? - Billie Holiday, Berlin, Irving
What a Little Moonlight Can Do - Billie Holiday, Woods, Harry
I Cried for You - Billie Holiday, Arnheim, Gus
Love Me or Leave Me - Billie Holiday, Donaldson, Walter
P.S. I Love You - Billie Holiday, Jenkins, Gordon [1]
Too Marvelous for Words - Billie Holiday, Mercer, Johnny
Softly - Billie Holiday, Beal, Eddie
I Thought About You - Billie Holiday, Mercer, Johnny
Willow Weep for Me - Billie Holiday, Ronell, Ann
Stormy Blues - Billie Holiday, Holiday, Billie
Say It Isn't So - Billie Holiday, Berlin, Irving
I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm - Billie Holiday, Berlin, Irving
I Wished on the Moon - Billie Holiday, Parker, Dorothy
Always - Billie Holiday, Berlin, Irving
Everything Happens to Me - Billie Holiday, Adair, Thomas M.
Do Nothin' Till You Hear from Me - Billie Holiday, Ellington, Duke
Ain't Misbehavin' - Billie Holiday, Brooks, Harry O.
Track Listings (16) - Disc #3
I Don't Want to Cry Anymore - Billie Holiday, Schertzinger, Victo
Prelude to a Kiss - Billie Holiday, Ellington, Duke
I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You - Billie Holiday, Crosby, Bing
When Your Lover Has Gone - Billie Holiday, Swan, Einar A.
Gone with the Wind - Billie Holiday, Magidson, Herbert
Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone - Billie Holiday, Clare, Sidney
It Had to Be You - Billie Holiday, Jones, Isham
Nice Work If You Can Get It - Billie Holiday, Gershwin, George
Come Rain or Come Shine - Billie Holiday, Arlen, Harold
I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues - Billie Holiday, Arlen, Harold
What's New? - Billie Holiday, Burke, Johnny
A Fine Romance - Billie Holiday, Fields, Dorothy
I Hadn't Anyone Till You - Billie Holiday, Noble, Ray
I Get a Kick Out of You - Billie Holiday, Porter, Cole
Everything I Have Is Yours - Billie Holiday, Adamson, Harold
Isn't This a Lovely Day? - Billie Holiday, Berlin, Irving
Track Listings (16) - Disc #4
Trav'lin' Light - Billie Holiday, Mercer, Johnny
I Must Have That Man! - Billie Holiday, Fields, Dorothy
Some Other Spring - Billie Holiday, Herzog, Arthur Jr.
Lady Sings the Blues - Billie Holiday, Holiday, Billie
Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday, Allen, L.
God Bless the Child - Billie Holiday, Herzog, Arthur Jr.
Good Morning Heartache - Billie Holiday, Drake, Ervin
No Good Man - Billie Holiday, Fisher, Dan
Do Nothin' Till You Hear from Me - Billie Holiday, Ellington, Duke
Cheek to Cheek - Billie Holiday, Berlin, Irving
Ill Wind - Billie Holiday, Arlen, Harold
Speak Low - Billie Holiday, Nash, Ogden [Author
We'll Be Together Again - Billie Holiday, Fischer, Carl [1]
All or Nothing at All - Billie Holiday, Altman, Arthur
Sophisticated Lady - Billie Holiday, Ellington, Duke
April in Paris - Billie Holiday, Duke, Vernon
Track Listings (14) - Disc #5
I Wished the Moon - Billie Holiday, Parker, Dorothy
Moonlight in Vermont - Billie Holiday, Blackburn, John
A Foggy Day - Billie Holiday, Gershwin, George
I Didn't Know What Time It Was - Billie Holiday, Hart, Lorenz
Just One of Those Things - Billie Holiday, Porter, Cole
Comes Love - Billie Holiday, Brown, Lew
Day in, Day Out - Billie Holiday, Bloom, Rube
Darn That Dream - Billie Holiday, DeLange, Edgar
But Not for Me - Billie Holiday, Gershwin, George
Body and Soul - Billie Holiday, Eyton, Frank
Stars Fell on Alabama - Billie Holiday, Parish, Mitchell
Say It Isn't So - Billie Holiday, Berlin, Irving
Love Is Here to Stay - Billie Holiday, Gershwin, George
One for My Baby (And One More for the Road) - Billie Holiday, Arlen, Harold
Track Listings (16) - Disc #6
They Can't Take That Away from Me - Billie Holiday, Gershwin, George
Embraceable You - Billie Holiday, Gershwin, George
Let's Call the Whole Thing Off - Billie Holiday, Gershwin, George
Gee, Baby, Ain't I Good to You? - Billie Holiday, Razaf, Andy
All the Way - Billie Holiday, Cahn, Sammy
It's Not for Me to Say - Billie Holiday, Allen, Robert
I'll Never Smile Again - Billie Holiday, Lowe, Ruth
Just One More Chance - Billie Holiday, Coslow, Sam
When It's Sleepy Time Down South - Billie Holiday, Muse, Clarence
Don't Worry 'Bout Me - Billie Holiday, Bloom, Rube
Sometimes I'm Happy - Billie Holiday, Caesar, Irving
You Took Advantage of Me - Billie Holiday, Hart, Lorenz
There'll Be Some Changes Made - Billie Holiday, Overstreet W. Bento
'Deed I Do - Billie Holiday, Hirsch, Walter
All of You - Billie Holiday, Porter, Cole
Baby, Won't You Please Come Home? - Billie Holiday, Warfield, Charles
For many people, Billie Holiday (a.k.a. "Lady Day") wasn't just a jazz singer. She was the jazz singer, and remains so today. Thanks to her lifelong struggles with men, alcohol, and drug addiction, Holiday is often viewed ... more »as an archetypal example of the suffering artist--a singer who sang her life. And there's no denying the often heartrending quality of the classic recordings she made with musicians like Ben Webster, Oscar Peterson, and Harry "Sweets" Edison.But Holiday's sophisticated sense of rhythm, subtle melodic improvisations, and nuanced way with a lyric enabled her to invest everything she sang with new meaning, from swinging dance tunes to mournful ballads. And her cool, effortless manner only heightened the emotional impact of her delivery. She influenced several generations of singers and instrumentalists alike, and stands shoulder-to-shoulder alongside such iconic jazz figures as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Charlie Parker.Original recordings produced by Norman Granz and others.« less
For many people, Billie Holiday (a.k.a. "Lady Day") wasn't just a jazz singer. She was the jazz singer, and remains so today. Thanks to her lifelong struggles with men, alcohol, and drug addiction, Holiday is often viewed as an archetypal example of the suffering artist--a singer who sang her life. And there's no denying the often heartrending quality of the classic recordings she made with musicians like Ben Webster, Oscar Peterson, and Harry "Sweets" Edison.But Holiday's sophisticated sense of rhythm, subtle melodic improvisations, and nuanced way with a lyric enabled her to invest everything she sang with new meaning, from swinging dance tunes to mournful ballads. And her cool, effortless manner only heightened the emotional impact of her delivery. She influenced several generations of singers and instrumentalists alike, and stands shoulder-to-shoulder alongside such iconic jazz figures as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Charlie Parker.Original recordings produced by Norman Granz and others.
CD Reviews
I Second the Horrible Packaging
D. Glassner | West Hollywood, CA United States | 01/29/2006
(4 out of 5 stars)
"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."
Essential, in a silly box
John Ellis | New York, NY United States | 03/17/2006
(4 out of 5 stars)
"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."
For Holiday Collectors...Check Out the 2 Cd and DVD Collecti
Original Mixed Up-Kid | New York United States | 12/15/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"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."
Forget the Packaging, Let's talk about the music.
bobtec | Redlands, CA | 12/21/2007
(4 out of 5 stars)
"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."