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Lady Day: the Best of Billie Holiday

by: Billie Holiday

Release Date October 15, 2001
On the crowded shelf of Billie Holiday "Best of"s a little guidance would be helpful, so here goes: You can roughly divide her career into 4 recording periods: 1. Columbia - 1935 - 1942, 2. Commodore mostly 1944, 3. Decca 1940s, 4. Verve 1950s. This "Best of" covers period 1 only, but what a period it was! The young Billie Holiday was the complete article right from her first recording. Her voice fits perfectly into the small groups at this time with musicians taken from some of the great swing bands of the day such as Artie Shaw, Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, Ben Webster, Buck Clayton, Freddie Green, Roy Eldridge and her most sympathetic collaborator Lester Young who christened her Lady Day. Sheer class! Unusually for a jazz singer, she doesn't ... Read More: