Search - Billie Holiday :: Songs for Distingue Lovers

Thomas D. (RockerBoomer) from SOUTHAMPTON, NY
Reviewed on 7/24/2010...

This 1957 recording is a performance of heightened expression, with Billie Holiday able to shift the mood and meaning of these very familiar songs with the slightest inflection of pitch and time, her phrasing the equal of any great jazz instrumentalist. Her slight alterations to the melody of "Stars Fell on Alabama" suggest more complex texts of song swimming just below the lyric. The tunes feature solos by Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster, and Barney Kessel. Throughout are highlights of shared creativity, while "They Can't Take That Away from Me" is a masterpiece of late swing.

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A late-period Billie album, but voice is still in good shape

29-year old wallflower | West Lafayette, IN | 06/16/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As the back of the newly-remastered SONGS FOR DISTINGUE LOVERS appropriately points out, Billie Holiday's voice did change in her later years. It was much lower & richer in texture, but it was one coming from a life's worth of experience that left Billie both scarred yet still resonant as ever. While the subsequent 1959's LADY IN SATIN would make it all too clear that Billie was nearing the end, 1957's SONGS FOR DISTINGUE LOVERS indicates very little of her short time left & thus creates a masterpiece on the level of SATIN.The original album only contained 6 songs, kind of skimpy even for 1957, but those 6 songs were all longer than 4 minutes, so time constraints probably were the reason for that. Thanks to Verve Records' extensive reissue campaign, DISTINGUE is stretched out to 12 songs with 6 other songs cherry-picked from other albums. Naturally, old standards & Great American Songbook entries are the order of the day, but Billie proves even the best-worn songs are ripe for a reinvention & on DISTINGUE, she does an excellent job as always.Definitely the most represented songwriters on the album are George & Ira Gershwin & their always sophisticated tunes are rendered even more so thanks to Billie's gently-nuanced delivery. Only "A Foggy Day" was on the original album, while "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off" (taken at a brisk, very jazz-like tempo) & "They Can't Take That Away From Me" (probably the Gershwins' most sophisticated song) appeared on BODY & SOUL. "Love Is Here To Stay" was first found on ALL OR NOTHING AT ALL. With the Gershwins having been the epitome of class & elegance, their material goes hand in hand with Miss Holiday, who always exuded those qualities even during the darkest hours of her life.Cole Porter's "Just One Of Those Things" (an original album entry) is given a new lease on life thanks to Billie, proving no matter how many times a song has been done by as many artists, Billie makes it sound like it's being sung for the very first time. Rodgers & Hart's "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" (on the original) is given a very torch-song-based delivery, hinting at the just-plain-downhearted atmosphere of LADY IN SATIN. Johnny Mercer's (who also did a fair amount of recording on his own, making him one of the first singer-songwriters) "Day In, Day Out" & "One For My Baby [And One More For The Road]" (all on the original album) are given epic arrangements that are often longer than Billie's vocals, but the music is so accessible & warm, they allow you to just let it run.Other songs are written by people not as famous on a level as the previously-mentiond writers, but perhaps the songs themselves are well-known anyway. "Stars Fell On Alabama" (original album), "I Wished On The Moon" (on ALL OR NOTHING AT ALL & co-written by playwright Dorothy Parker), "Body & Soul" (on the album of the same name) & Moonlight In Vermont" (also on BODY & SOUL and probably well-known thanks to its constant cover versions) show the equal footing on which Billie & her band are making them stars on the same bill.By the time Billie Holiday made SONGS FOR DISTINGUE LOVERS in 1957, she was 42 years old, but had lived quite a lot in that relatively short amount of time. Because her voice was still in pretty good shape at this time, how it almost deteriorated by the time of LADY IN SATIN was definitely a shocker. Those who care to dive into Billie's later work may want to try SONGS FOR DISTINGUE LOVERS on for size before being brave enough to go for LADY IN SATIN (I did the opposite, to tell you the truth). Nevertheless, if you want music that's "distingue" all over (the music, the lyrics, the vocals, the songwriters), look no further than this."

Billie's Voice Well-Aged and Mellow

omeoji | Vancouver, BC Canada | 12/31/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It's sad to reflect on the fact that Billie Holiday was a hard-line junk user when she made these recordings. It would be nice to think that she brought about the profoundly relaxed feel of "Day In, Day Out" without the aid of narcotics. Nevertheless, this is a beautiful album in spite of the opinion of some uptight critics that Billie Holiday's late-period sides for Verve were merely the money-grubbing croaks of a former goddess descending gradually into her grave. I can't help but have a relaxed feel-good grin on my face as I listen to these tracks. This music sounds best late at night--the album has a club feel. The band's accompaniment is perfectly appropriate to that unique instrument they are supporting, Lady Day's voice. The solos are more on the melody than the chords, but since Billie was a pre-Bop singer, this is good. In spite of the accessible nature of the playing, this is not pop-Jazz. Ella Fitzgerald's songbook series for the same label is. Billie, unlike Ella, didn't move comfortably between pop and Jazz. Her late Verve sides are better than the listenable but misguided and overrated _Lady in Satin_ on Columbia. Strings didn't complement her voice as well as a small, tight jazz group. Ella, unlike Billie, could sing credibly in either context.It should be noted that these performances are also available on the 2 disc set _All or Nothing at All_, but _Songs for Distingue Lovers_ is more beautifully packaged, replicating the original album's artwork and containing insightful 1997 liner notes from James Patrick in addition to a reproduction of the original liner notes. If you have a lover, give him/her a copy of this disc. There's someone I want to give it to, but I don't think she'd accept it, and perhaps this makes the forlorn voice of these tunes sound all the more fabulous."