Val Wiseman & the Lady Sings the Blues Orchestra – Lady Sings The Blues (1990)

What a great lady:
“Val Wiseman as a genuine jazz singer has few peers – warmth, swing, blues sympathy, impeccable intonation and sincerity of delivery rarely encountered in such generous detail.” Ken Rattenbury – The Jazz Rag

Val Wiseman’s remarkable career began in the midlands and owes much to early influences in music and drama and the opportunity of working with some of Britain’s legendary bands. Alex Welsh, Humphrey Lyttelton, Monty Sunshine and Kenny Baker were quick to notice her potential and featured her on their tours and broadcasts. Her growing reputation led to a starring role in a new Billie Holiday tribute, Lady Sings The Blues with a team of top British players. The show and album won critical acclaim, with television and concert appearances worldwide and for Val, an army of new fans.

Her first solo album Just For A Thrill was released in 2003 to enthusiastic reviews and in 2008 Val’s work was rewarded when she was voted best British vocalist in the British Jazz Awards.

“Certainly one of the finest, if not the finest, jazz vocalists currently active in the UK”
Amazon Review Oct 2008
.

“This British singer is in a class of her own – great feeling and vocal accomplishment.”
Music Review, Freiburg, Germany

Val still tours with Lady Sings The Blues, and also stars in a variety of musical shows: her tribute to favourite singers Divas Of Swing, the Duke Ellington songbook Sophisticated Lady with Martin Litton’s Ellingtonians, Jazz Goes To The Movies, a joyous review of film songs with Digby Fairweather’s Half Dozen, plus Gershwin tribute S’Wonderful and Swinging Down Memory Lane with John Petters Productions. Val also presents lively, illustrated talks: The Joys of Jazz Singing and The Brontë Legacy.

“The Joys of Jazz Singing” was a delightful journey in words and music –
a wonderful hour went by all too quickly.” (Sinatra Music Society Oct. 2009)

Returning to her interest in drama and love for musical theatre, Val has written and produced an album of songs dedicated to the world’s most famous literary family, the Brontës. Keeping The Flame Alive, with music by distinguished pianist and composer Brian Dee, is now being presented as a dramatic musical show. The reviews are positive!

“Her captivating stage presence and multi layered interpretations were pure joy.” (Buxton Festival Review June 2009)

“The singing was superb – dramatic and presented with a beautiful flourish…
she oozes presence.” Dewsbury Brontë Festival Review Sept 2009. (dscogs.com)

And here´s her tribute to der great Billie Holliday:

Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed “Lady Day” by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday made a significant contribution to jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly influenced by jazz instrumentalists, inspired a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.

After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by producer John Hammond, who liked her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson produced the hit “What a Little Moonlight Can Do”, which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall. She was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall. Because of personal struggles and an altered voice, her final recordings were met with mixed reaction but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of heart failure on July 17, 1959, at age 44.

Holiday won four Grammy Awards, all of them posthumously, for Best Historical Album. She was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. In 2000, she was also inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence; their website states that “Billie Holiday changed jazz forever”. She was named one of the 50 Great Voices by NPR; and was ranked fourth on the Rolling Stone list of “200 Greatest Singers of All Time” (2023). Several films about her life have been released, most recently The United States vs. Billie Holiday (wikipedia)

Together with the best musicians of British traditional jazz music, she interprets the songs of Billie Holiday in an outstanding way.
It is simply a pleasure ….

Personnel:
Jim Douglas (guitar)
Digby Fairweather (fluegelhorn, cornet)
Al Gay (saxophone, clarinet)
Brian Lemon (piano)
Len Skeat (bass)
Eddie Taylor (drums)
Roy Williams (trombone)
Val Wiseman (vocals)

Tracklist:
01. Eeny Meeny Miny Mo (Mercder/Maineck) 4.07
02. What Shall I Say? (Tinturin) 3.45
03. One, Two, Button Your Shoe (Burke/Johnston) 3.38
04. I’ll Never Be The Same (Malneck/Signorelli/Kahn) 2.55
05. How Could You? (Dubin/Warren) 2.13
06. Am I Blue? (Akst/Clarke) 2.56
07. What A Little Moonlight Can Do (Woods) 4.57
08. Miss Brown To You (Robin/Rainger/Whiting) 2.52
09. On The Sentimental Side (Burke(Monaco) 2.48
10. It’s Easy To Blame The Weather (Chaplin(Cahn) 3.12
11. He’s Funny That Way (Whiting/Moret) 4.24
12. If Dreams Come True (Sampson/Goodman/Mills) 3.46
13. Lover Man (Davis/Ramirez/Sheman) 4.51
14. Just One Of Those Things (Handy) 5.17
+
15. Easy Living (Rainger/Robin) 3.06
16. You Can Depend On Me (Carpenter/Hines/Dunlop) 4.14
17. Don’t Explain (Holidy/Herzog) 4.32
18. Riffin’ The Scotch (McDonough/Goodman/Bucks) 2.27

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More from Billie Holiday in ths blog:

The official website:

Billie Holiday – Billie’s Blues (1998)

Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed “Lady Day” by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.

After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by producer John Hammond, who liked her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson produced the hit “What a Little Moonlight Can Do”, which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca.

Billie Holiday, aged two, in 1917:

By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall. She was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall. Because of personal struggles and an altered voice, her final recordings were met with mixed reaction but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of cirrhosis on July 17, 1959, at age 44.

Holiday won four Grammy Awards, all of them posthumously, for Best Historical Album. She was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. She was also inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, though not in that genre; the website states that “Billie Holiday changed jazz forever”. Several films about her life have been released, most recently The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021).

Billie Holiday performing at the Club Bali, Washington,
with Al Dunn (drums), and Bobby Tucker (piano) in 1948:

By early 1959, Holiday was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. Although she had initially stopped drinking on her doctor’s orders, it was not long before she relapsed. By May 1959, she had lost 20 pounds (9.1 kg). Her manager, Joe Glaser, jazz critic Leonard Feather, photojournalist Allan Morrison, and the singer’s own friends all tried in vain to persuade her to go to a hospital. On May 31, 1959, Holiday was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York for treatment of both liver and heart disease. According to writer and journalist Johann Hari, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics under Harry J. Anslinger had been targeting Holiday since at least 1939, when she started to perform “Strange Fruit”; However, this allegation has been disputed, with historian Lewis Porter noting that “there was no federal objection to the song “Strange Fruit,” nor was there any campaign to suppress it” and Holiday was instead pursued by Bureau of Narcotics mainly for her history of drug use. Narcotics police went to her hospital room, claiming they had found heroin in her bedroom. A grand jury was summoned to indict her, and she was arrested, handcuffed to her bed, and placed under police guard.[95] According to Hari, after ten days, methadone was discontinued as part of Anslinger’s policy; Hari accused Anslinger of being responsible for her death. On July 15, she received last rites.[98] She died at age 44 at 3:10 a.m. on July 17, 1959, of pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver.

In her final years Holiday had been progressively swindled out of her earnings by McKay and she died with US$0.70 in the bank. Her funeral Mass was held on July 21, 1959, at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan. She was buried at Saint Raymond’s Cemetery in the Bronx. The story of her burial plot and how it was managed by her estranged husband, Louis McKay, was documented on NPR in 2012.

Gilbert Millstein of The New York Times, who was the announcer at Holiday’s 1956 Carnegie Hall concerts and wrote parts of the sleeve notes for the album The Essential Billie Holiday (see above), described her death in these sleeve notes, dated 1961:

Billie Holiday died in Metropolitan Hospital, New York, on Friday, July 17, 1959, in the bed in which she had been arrested for illegal possession of narcotics a little more than a month before, as she lay mortally ill; in the room from which a police guard had been removed – by court order – only a few hours before her death. She had been strikingly beautiful, but her talent was wasted. The worms of every kind of excess – drugs were only one – had eaten her. The likelihood exists that among the last thoughts of this cynical, sentimental, profane, generous and greatly talented woman of 44 was the belief that she was to be arraigned the following morning. She would have been, eventually, although possibly not that quickly. In any case, she removed herself finally from the jurisdiction of any court here below.

When Holiday died, The New York Times published a short obituary on page 15 without a byline. She left an estate of $1,000, and her best recordings from the 1930s were mostly out of print. Holiday’s public stature grew in the following years. In 1961, she was voted to the Down Beat Hall Of Fame, and soon after Columbia reissued nearly one hundred of her early records. In 1972, Diana Ross’ portrayal of Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. Holiday was posthumously nominated for 23 Grammy awards. (wikipedia)

Most of this excellent CD features one of Billie Holiday’s finest concert recordings of the 1950s. Recorded in Europe before an admiring audience, this enjoyable set finds Lady Day performing seven of her standards with her trio and joining in for jam session versions of “Billie’s Blues” and “Lover Come Back to Me” with an all-star group starring clarinetist Buddy DeFranco, vibraphonist Red Norvo and guitarist Jimmy Raney. These performances (which find Holiday in stronger voice than on her studio recordings of the period) have also been included in Verve’s massive CD box set. This program concludes with Holiday’s four rare sides for Aladdin in 1951 (between her Decca and Verve periods) which are highlighted by two blues and “Detour Ahead,” and her 1942 studio recording of “Trav’lin’ Light” with Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra. (by Scott Yanow)

Personnel:
Carl Drinkard (piano)
Billie Holiday (vocals)
Elaine Leighton (drums)
Red Mitchell (bass)
+
Beryl Booker (piano on 10. + 11.)
Sonny Clark (piano on 10. + 11.)
Buddy DeFranco (clarinet on 10. + 11.)
Tiny Grimes (guitar on 12. – 15.)
Heywood Henry (saxophone on 12. – 15.)
Red Norvo (vibraphone on 10. + 11.)
Mike Pingitore (guitar on 16.)
Jimmy Raney (guitar on 10.+ 11.)
Artie Shapiro (bass on 16.)
Bobby Tucker (piano on 12. – 15.)
+
unknown bass & drums on 12. – 15.

Tracklist:
01. Announcement by Leonard Feather (in German) 0.29
02. Blue Moon (Hart/Rodgers) 2.15
03. All Of Me (Marks/Simons) 1.43
04. My Man (Charles/Pollack/Willemetz/Yvain) 2.51
05. Them Their Eyes (Holiday) 1.40
06. I Cried For You (Arnheim/Freed/Lyman) 3.22
07. What A Little Moonlight Can Do (Woods) 2.45
08. I Cover The Waterfront (Green/Heyman) 3.31
09. Billie’s Blues (Holiday) 11.34
10. Lover, Come Back To Me (Hammerstein II/Romberg) 6.39
11. Blue Turning Grey Over You (Razaf/Waller) 2.02
12. Be Fair With Me Baby (Darnell) 2.36
13. Rocky Mountain Blues (Haywood/Tucker) 3.04
14. Detour Ahead (Carter/Ellis/Freigo) 3.03
15. Trav’lin’ Light (Mercer/Mundy/Young) 3.17

Tracks 2 to 11 recorded live in Köln, Germany on January 5, 1954
Tracks 12 to 15 recorded in New York City on April 29, 1951 for Aladdin Records

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More from Billie Holiday:

Sam Cooke – Tribute To The Lady (1959)

Samuel Cook (January 22, 1931 – December 11, 1964), known professionally as Sam Cooke, was an American singer, songwriter, civil-rights activist and entrepreneur.

Influential as a singer, composer, and producer, he is commonly known as the King of Soul for his distinctive vocals and importance within popular music. He began singing as a kid and joined the Soul Stirrers before moving to a solo career where he scored a string of hit songs including “You Send Me”, “A Change Is Gonna Come”, “Cupid”, “Wonderful World”, “Chain Gang”, “Twistin’ the Night Away”, and “Bring It On Home to Me”.

His pioneering contributions to soul music contributed to the rise of Aretha Franklin, Bobby Womack, Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Billy Preston, and popularized the likes of Otis Redding and James Brown. AllMusic biographer Bruce Eder wrote that Cooke was “the inventor of soul music”, and possessed “an incredible natural singing voice and a smooth, effortless delivery that has never been surpassed”.

On December 11, 1964, at the age of 33, Cooke was shot and killed by Bertha Franklin, the manager of the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles, California. After an inquest and investigation carried out by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), the courts ruled Cooke’s death to be a justifiable homicide. Since that time, the circumstances of his death have been called into question by Cooke’s family.

Tribute to the Lady is the third studio album by American singer-songwriter Sam Cooke, released in 1959. It was recorded in tribute to jazz vocalist Billie Holiday, who died later that year. The backing band is the René Hall Orchestra. (by wikipedia)

An album that’s seldom been seen and disappeared almost as quickly as it was released. Sam Cooke turned these songs inside out with twisting, awesome interpretations. It was one of the few times he was able to break out of the light pop/teen idol bag in a studio and pour his heart into great lyrics and numbers. (Ron Wynn)

Sam “Mr. Soul” Cooke was multi-talented, and his range of songs were from Gospel to Jazz including blues and folk. Here he sings songs made famous by the great Billie Holliday. He does more than justice to them all, and I am sure “Lady Day” felt honored by his rendition of her songs. In the last months of his career and life, you can hear him doing a mixture of songs on “Live at the Copa,” and if you want a real soulful/Gospel oriented album, get the “Live at the Harlem Square Club.” The only live Gospel album is “The Great 1955 Shrine Concert” where he rocked the house (church gathering). I am fortunate to meet and talk with Sam Cook late in 1955 when he was with the Soul Stirrers in my home city of Charleston, SC.

My teenage Gospel group members and I went to see him, and he treated us as if each one of us was special. We were only fourteen and fifteen years old at the time. We saw women – and men – screaming and the women falling out from his powerful singing. When he was murdered, we all felt as if we had lost a big brother. When people visit us, they see so much Sam Cooke paraphernalia that they ask, “Were you related to Sam Cooke?” lol By the way, he added the “e” to his name when he left the Soul Stirrers and the Gospel circuit and went secular in 1957. He was born Samuel Cook. I bought “Tribute to the Lady” as a gift, and my son loves it. I had the vinyl copy back in the 60s. (Caroll L.)

Personnel:
Sam Cooke (vocals)
+
René Hall Orchestra

Tracklist:
01. God Bless The Child (Herzog, Jr.) 2.36
02. She’s Funny That Way (Daniels/Whiting) 1.53
03. I’ve Got A Right To Sing The Blues (Arlen/Koehler) 2.36
04. Good Morning Heartache (Fisher/Drake/Higginbotham) 2.10
05. ‘T’aint Nobody’s Bizness (If I Do) (Grainger/Robbins) 2.28
06. Comes Love (Brown/Stept/Tobias) 2.31
07. Lover Girl (Man) (Davis/Ramirez/Sherman) 2.27
08. Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off (G.Gershwin/I.Gershwin) 2.22
09. Lover Come Back To Me (Romberg/Hammerstein II) 2.14
10. Solitude (Ellington/DeLange/Mills) 2.25
11. They Can’t Take That Away From Me (G.Gershwin/I.Gershwin) 2.34
12. Crazy In Love With You (Benton/Otis) 2.35

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Sam Cooke (January 22, 1931 – December 11, 1964)

Billie Holiday With Ray Ellis And His Orchestra – Lady In Satin (1958)

Lady in Satin is an album by jazz singer Billie Holiday released in 1958 on Columbia Records, catalogue CL 1157 in mono and CS 8048 in stereo. It is the penultimate album completed by the singer and last released in her lifetime (her final album, Last Recording, being recorded in March 1959 and released just after her death). The original album was produced by Irving Townsend, and engineered by Fred Plaut.

For the majority of the 1950s, Billie Holiday was signed to jazz producer Norman Granz’s Clef Records, which was later absorbed into the newly founded Verve Records by 1956. All of her work for Norman Granz consisted of small jazz combos, reuniting her with musicians she recorded with back in the 1930s when she made her first recordings with Teddy Wilson. There were talks in the early 1950s of Holiday making albums, or songbooks, dedicated to composers such as George and Ira Gershwin and Jerome Kern, but they fell through and ended up going to Ella Fitzgerald when she signed to Verve. By 1957, Holiday had recorded twelve albums for Granz and was unhappy. Therefore, she decided not to renew her contract.

By October 1957, Holiday contacted Columbia producer Irving Townsend and expressed interest in recording with bandleader Ray Ellis after listening to his album Ellis in Wonderland. Originally, she wanted to do an album with bandleader Nelson Riddle after hearing his arrangements for Frank Sinatra’s albums, particularly In the Wee Small Hours, but after hearing Ellis’s version of “For All We Know”, she wanted to record with him. When Holiday came to Townsend about the album, he was surprised:
“ It would be like Ella Fitzgerald saying that she wanted to record with Ray Conniff. But she said she wanted a pretty album, something delicate. She said this over and over. She thought it would be beautiful. She wasn’t interested in some wild swinging jam session…She wanted that cushion under her voice. She wanted to be flattered by that kind of sound. ”

Townsend got in touch with Ellis about the album. Ellis, having heard of Holiday’s work throughout the 1930s and 1940s, was excited for the project, saying “I couldn’t believe it…I didn’t know she was aware of me.” Townsend arranged a meeting for both Holiday and Ellis to sign a contract with Columbia. Columbia provided an unlimited budget for the album. The musicians in the orchestra were paid $60 for the three sessions and Holiday was paid $150 per side in advance. Townsend went on to set up the recording dates for late February 1958.

When Holiday signed her contract for Columbia, the label looked at it as new beginning, for this was her return to the label after sixteen years. During Holiday’s time with Norman Granz’s label, she revisited old material she had previously recorded and songs that were well known in her repertoire, such as “My Man”, “Lover, Come Back to Me”, “I Cover the Waterfront”, “Them There Eyes”, “I Only Have Eyes for You” and others. Columbia wanted Holiday to do an album of songs she had never recorded before,[5] so the song material for Lady in Satin derived from the usual sources for Holiday in her three decade career, that of the Great American Songbook of classic pop. Also, unlike the bulk of Holiday’s recordings with Norman Granz and her early years at Columbia in the 1930s and early 1940s, rather than in the setting of a jazz combo Holiday returns to the backdrop of full orchestral arrangements as done during her Decca years eight years earlier. She wanted the album to be in the same contemporary vein of Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald on her Songbooks series.

Ray Ellis made his arrangements of the songs to match Holiday’s voice. By the mid- to late 1950s, Holiday’s voice changed drastically due to years of alcohol and drug abuse, altering its texture and gave it a fragile, raspy sound. Despite her voice’s setback, she never lost the edge that had always made it so distinctive and was able to still use her style of phrasing that made her a popular jazz singer. Ray Ellis said of Holiday’s voice:
“ I heard her voice [and] I dug it. I was in love with that voice and I was picturing a very evil, sensuous, sultry, very evil…probably one of the most evil voices I’ve heard in my life…Evil is earthy to me. When you say someone is evil, it means very, very bad. I don’t mean bad. ”

Ellis used a forty-piece orchestra, complete with horns, strings, reeds and even a three-piece choir. It would turn out to be Holiday’s most expensive music production. Soloists on the album included Mel Davis, Urbie Green, and bebop trombone pioneer J. J. Johnson.

Reaction to the album has been mixed. Holiday’s voice had lost much of its upper range in her 40s, although she still retained her rhythmic phrasing. The Penguin Guide to Jazz gave the album a three-star rating out of a possible four stars, but expressed a basic reservation about the album, describing it as “a voyeuristic look at a beaten woman.” The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide said “Lady in Satin presents the Lady overdressed. It’s an album from the late Fifties, when much of Billie’s punch was gone.”

However, trumpeter Buck Clayton preferred the work of the later Holiday to that of the younger woman that he had often worked with in the 1930s. Ray Ellis said of the album in 1997:

I would say that the most emotional moment was her listening to the playback of “I’m a Fool to Want You”. There were tears in her eyes…After we finished the album I went into the control room and listened to all the takes. I must admit I was unhappy with her performance, but I was just listening musically instead of emotionally. It wasn’t until I heard the final mix a few weeks later that I realized how great her performance really was.” (by wikipedia)

This was Billie Holiday’s penultimate album, recorded when her body was telling her enough was enough. During the sessions with arranger Ray Ellis she was drinking vodka neat, as if it were tap water. Despite her ravaged voice (the sweetness had long gone), she was still an incredible singer. The feeling and tension she manages to put into almost every track set this album as one of her finest achievements. “You’ve Changed” and “I Get Along Without You Very Well” are high art performances from the singer who saw life from the bottom up. (by Rovi Staff)

There are two kinds of Jazz Singers. Billie Holiday and everyone else. And amongst everyone else, there are also two kinds of Jazz singers – those who came before Billie Holiday and those who came after, who are equally cursed and blessed – cursed to live in her shadow and blessed to be able to learn from her craft. And, while the voice wavers here with it ravages, the craft is impeccable. “I’m a Fool to Want You” is enough to make a believer of even the stoniest-hearted cynic. (Seb Nmd)

Personnel:
Mel Davis ( solo trumpet)
Barry Galbraith (guitar)
Urbie Green (solo trombone)
Billie Holiday (vocals)
Milt Hinton (bass)
J.J. Johnson (solo trombone)
Osie Johnson (drums)
Janet Putman (harp)
Mal Waldron (piano)
+
violin:
George Ockner – Emmanual Green Harry Hoffman – Harry Katzmann – Leo Kruczek  – Milton Lomask – Harry Meinikoff – David Newman – Samuel Rand – David Sarcer
+
viola:
Sid Brecher – Richard Dichler
+
cello:
David Soyer – Maurice Brown
+
flute:
Danny Bank – Phil Bodner – Romeo Penque – Tom Parshley
+
trumpet:
Billy Butterfield – Jimmy Ochner – Bernie Glow
+
trombone:
Jack Green – Tommy Mitchell
+
background vocals:
Elise Bretton – Miriam Workman

Tracklist:
01. I’m A Fool To Want You (Sinatra/Herron/Wolf) 3.25
02. For Heaven’s Sake (Bretton/Edwards/Meyer) 3.29
03. You Don’t Know What Love Is (DePaul/Raye) 3.51
04. I Get Along Without You Very Well (Carmichael) 3.02
05. For All We Know (Coots/Lewis) 2.56
06. Violets For Your Furs (Adair/Dennis) 3.27
07. You’ve Changed (Carey/Fischer) 3.20
08. It’s Easy To Remember (Hart/Rodgers) 4.03
09. But Beautiful (Burke/Van Heusen) 4.32
10. Glad To Be Unhappy (Hart/Rodgers) 4.10
11. I’ll Be Around (Wilder) 3.27
+
12. The End Of A Love Affair (mono only) Redding) 4.52

The album was released in stereo (CS 8048) and mono (CL 1157) versions; the mono release contained an extra track, “The End of a Love Affair”.

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Billie Holiday (April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959)

Billie Holiday – Same (Last Recording) (1959)

Last Recording, originally titled Billie Holiday before her death, is the last album of Billie Holiday released in 1959, five years after the original album titled Billie Holiday was released.

After the success of her album, Lady in Satin (1958), Billie Holiday wanted to record another album with arranger Ray Ellis. Ellis had switched from Columbia to MGM, so Billie switched labels also to avoid breaching her contract with Columbia. When she returned to the studio in March 1959, jazz critic and friend of Holiday’s Leonard Feather, said Holiday “walked into the studio statuesque and sharp as ever.”

Unlike Lady in Satin, Billie Holiday had a lighter string orchestra, minus the choir, and more horns, including a saxophone and a more jazz like feeling. It also demand less fanfare. Songs like “All of You”, “‘Deed I Do”, and “Baby Won’t You Please Come Home” have a lighter and happier tempo and do not include strings.

Holiday told Ellis she wanted to “sound like Sinatra” on this album; but she was in such poor health from years of difficulty and substance abuse that a nurse sometimes had to help keep her propped up on a high stool as she sang.

During the time of recording Billie Holiday, Holiday’s health was taking its toll. Some say that she did not look like herself at all, and looked like a ghost of what she once was.

In the song “There’ll Be Some Changes Made”, Holiday replaces the name Jack Benny in the lyric “Even Jack Benny has been changin’ his jokes” to Frank Sinatra, her jazz friend.

The album was completed on March 11, 1959. Four days later, Billie Holiday’s lifelong friend and music partner Lester Young died on March 15, 1959. She would die four months later on July 17, 1959 at the age of 44.

Allmusic music critic Ron Wynn gave the album one and half stars out of five stating, “In many ways, a sad event… It’s poignant in a tragic way.”

By 1959, use of hard drugs and alcohol had taken their toll on Holiday’s voice. It is evident that her voice had deteriorated since her previous album Lady in Satin. Producer and arranger Ray Ellis said that the producers “accidentally” adjusted the speed at 1/4 pitch faster in the studio making Holiday’s voice high pitched in some songs like “You Took Advantage of Me”. (by wikipedia)

Personnel:
Billie Holiday (vocals)
+
Ray Ellis & His Orchestra:
Danny Bank (Saxophone)
Billy Byers (trombone)
Al Cohn (saxophone)
Harry Edison (trumpet)
Joe Wilder (trumpet)
Barry Galbraith (guitar)
Milt Hinton (bass)
Osie Johnson (drums)
Hank Jones (piano)
+
unknown string section

Arranged and conducted by Ray Ellis

Tracklist:
01. All Of You (Porter) 2.30
02. Sometimes I’m Happy Caesar/Gray/Youmans) 2.46
03. You Took Advantage Of Me (Rodgers/Hart) 2.46
04. When It’s Sleepy Time Down South (L.René/O.René/Muse) 4.04
05. There’ll Be Some Changes Made” – (W. Benton Overstreet, Billy Higgins) – 2:52
06. ‘Deed I Do – (Walter Hirsch, Fred Rose) – 2:14
07. Don’t Worry ’bout Me (Koehler/Bloom) 3.08
08. All The Way (Cahn/van Heusen) .22
09. Just One More Chance (Coslow/Johnston) 3.43
10. It’s Not For Me To Say (Stillman/Allen) 2.25
11. I’ll Never Smile Again (Lowe) 3.23
12. Baby Won’t You Please Come Home (Warfield/Williams) 3.03

 

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Taken from the original liner notes

Billie Holiday (April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959)

Various Artists – Silent Night, Jazzy Night (2001)

It´s christmas time again … and I will start with some special recordings, christmas records, of course !

And I have a dream for this christmas, a very old dream, the dream of Martin Luther King:

“Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!”

And this ist not an american dream only … I wish all readers of this blog a peaceful December 2013.

And listen carefully to some great Jazz interpretations of all these old christmas songs !

Tracklist:
01. Duke Ellington & His Orchestra: Jingle Bells (alternate version) (1962) (Traditional) 3.19
02. Leon Parker: In A Sentimental Mood (1996) (Ellington) 4.39
03. Nat King Cole: The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas To You) (1986) (Trome/Wells) 3.11
04. Johnnie Ray: As Time Goes By (1954) (Hupfeld) 3.14
05. Mahalia Jackson: Silent Night, Holy Night (1962) (Gruber/Mohr) 5.04
06. Miles Davis & Gil Evans: Blue Xmas (master) (Dorough) 2.40
07. Glenn Miller Orchestra: Moonlight Serenade (1960) (Miller/Parish) 3.39
08. Billie Holiday: God Bless The Child (1941) (Holiday/Herzog) 2.56
09. Grover Washington Jr:. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (1997) (Martin/Blane) 4.53
10. Chet Baker: I Married An Angel (1954) (Hart/Rodgers) 3.39
11. The Manhattan Transfer: Santa Claus Is Coming To Town/ Santa Man (1991)(Gillespie/Coots/Paul) 3.01
12. Aretha Franklin: Winter Wonderland (1964) (Smith/Bernard) 2.12
13. Mel Tormé: Strangers In The Night (1966) (Kaempfert/Snyder/Singleton) 2.41

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