name | Billie Holiday |
---|---|
background | solo_singer |
birth name | Eleanora Fagan |
alias | Lady Day |
birth date | April 07, 1915 |
birth place | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States |
death date | July 17, 1959 |
death place | New York City, New York, U.S. |
origin | Harlem, New York, U.S. |
instrument | Vocals |
genre | Vocal jazz, jazz blues, torch songs, swing |
occupation | Singer, songwriter |
years active | 1933–1959 |
label | Brunswick, Vocalion, Okeh, Bluebird, Commodore, Capitol, Decca, Aladdin, Verve, Columbia, MGM |
associated acts | Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Lena Horne |
website | Billie Holiday Official Site }} |
Critic John Bush wrote that Holiday "changed the art of American pop vocals forever." She co-wrote only a few songs, but several of them have become jazz standards, notably "God Bless the Child", "Don't Explain", "Fine and Mellow", and "Lady Sings the Blues". She also became famous for singing "Easy Living", "Good Morning Heartache", and "Strange Fruit", a protest song which became one of her standards and was made famous with her 1939 recording.
Some historians have disputed Holiday's paternity, as a copy of her birth certificate in the Baltimore archives lists the father as "Frank DeViese". Other historians consider this an anomaly, probably inserted by a hospital or government worker. Frank DeViese lived in Philadelphia and Sadie Harris may have known him through her work.
Sadie Harris, then known as Sadie Fagan, married Philip Gough, but the marriage was over in two years. Holiday was left with Martha Miller again while her mother took further transportation jobs. Holiday frequently skipped school and her truancy resulted in her being brought before the juvenile court on January 5, 1925 when she was not yet 10. She was sent to The House of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic reform school. She was baptized there on March 19, 1925 and after nine months in care, was "paroled" on October 3, 1925 to her mother, who had opened a restaurant called the East Side Grill, where she and Holiday worked long hours. By the age of 11, the girl had dropped out of school.
Holiday's mother returned to their home on December 24, 1926, to discover a neighbor, Wilbur Rich, raping Holiday. Rich was arrested. Officials placed the girl at the House of the Good Shepherd in protective custody as a state witness in the rape case. Holiday was released in February 1927, nearly 12. Holiday and her mother wound up living with and working for a madam. During this time, Holiday first heard the records of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. By the end of 1928, Holiday's mother decided to try her luck in Harlem, New York and left Holiday again with Martha Miller.
Holiday took her professional pseudonym from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and the musician Clarence Holiday, her probable father. At the outset of her career, she spelled her last name ''Halliday'', the birth-surname of her father, but eventually changed it to ''Holiday'', his performing name. The young singer teamed up with a neighbor, tenor sax player Kenneth Hollan. From 1929 to 1931, they were a team, performing at clubs such as the Grey Dawn, Pod's and Jerry's, and the Brooklyn Elks' Club. Benny Goodman recalled hearing Holiday in 1931 at The Bright Spot. As her reputation grew, Holiday played at many clubs, including Mexico's and The Alhambra Bar and Grill where Charles Linton, a vocalist who later worked with Chick Webb, first met her. It was also during this period that she connected with her father, who was playing with Fletcher Henderson's band.
By the end of 1932 at the age of 17, Billie Holiday replaced the singer Monette Moore at a club called Covan's on West 132nd Street. The producer John Hammond, who loved Monette Moore's singing and had come to hear her, first heard Holiday in early 1933. Hammond arranged for Holiday to make her recording debut, at age 18, in November 1933 with Benny Goodman, singing two songs: "Your Mother's Son-In-Law" and "Riffin' the Scotch", the latter being her first major hit. "Son-in-Law" sold 300 copies, but "Riffin' the Scotch," released on November 11, sold 5,000 copies.
Holiday returned to the studio in 1935 with Goodman and a group led by pianist Teddy Wilson. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do," and "Miss Brown To You." The record label did not favor the recording session, because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown, an established jazz singer. After "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" garnered success, however, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later (on the 35 cent Vocalion label), producing a series of extraordinary performances with groups comprising the swing era's finest musicians. In 1935, Billie Holiday had a small role as a woman being abused by her lover in Duke Ellington's short ''Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life''. In her scene, she sang the song "Saddest Tale."
Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new "swing" style for the growing jukebox trade. They were given free rein to improvise the material. Holiday's improvisation of the melody line to fit the emotion was revolutionary. With their arrangements, Wilson and Holiday took pedestrian pop tunes, such as "Twenty-Four Hours a Day" (#6 Pop) or "Yankee Doodle Never Went To Town", and turned them into jazz classics. Most of Holiday's recordings with Wilson or under her own name during the 1930s and early 1940s are regarded as important parts of the jazz vocal library. She was then in her early to late 20s.
Another frequent accompanist was the tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a special rapport. He said,
"Well, I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices, if you don't be careful, you know, or the same mind, or something like that."Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she, in turn, dubbed him "Prez". She did a three-month residency at Clark Monroe's Uptown House in New York in 1937. In the late 1930s, Holiday had brief stints as a big band vocalist with Count Basie (1937) and Artie Shaw (1938). The latter association placed her among the first black women to work with a white orchestra, an unusual arrangement for the times.
By the late 1930s, Billie Holiday had toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw, scored a string of radio and retail hits with Teddy Wilson, and became an established artist in the recording industry. Her songs "What A Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Easy Living" were being imitated by singers across America and were quickly becoming jazz standards. In 1938, Holiday's single "I'm Gonna Lock My Heart" ranked 6th as the most-played song for September of that year. Her record label Vocalion listed the single as its fourth best seller for the same month. "I'm Gonna Lock My Heart" peaked at number 2 on the pop charts according to Joel Whitburn's "Pop Memories: 1890-1954" book.
When Holiday's producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, Milt Gabler agreed to record it for his Commodore Records. That was done on April 20, 1939, and "Strange Fruit" remained in her repertoire for twenty years. She later recorded it again for Verve. While the Commodore release did not get any airplay, the controversial song sold well, though Gabler attributed that mostly to the record's other side, "Fine and Mellow", which was a jukebox hit. "The version I did for Commodore," Holiday said of "Strange Fruit", "became my biggest selling record." "Strange Fruit" was the equivalent of a top twenty hit in the 1930s.
For her performance of "Strange Fruit" at the Café Society, she had waiters silence the crowd when the song began. During the song's long introduction, the lights dimmed and all movement had to cease. As Holiday began singing, only a small spotlight of light illuminated her face. On the final note, all lights in the club went out and when they came back on, Holiday was gone.
Holiday said her father Clarence Holiday was denied treatment for a fatal lung disorder because of prejudice and that singing "Strange Fruit" reminded her of the incident. "It reminds me of how pop died, but I have to keep singing it, not only because people ask for it, but because twenty years after Pop died the things that killed him are still happening in the south," she said in her autobiography.
Holiday's popularity increased after recording "Strange Fruit". She received a mention in ''Time'' magazine. "I open Café Society as an unknown," Holiday said. "I left two years later as a star. I needed the prestige and publicity all right, but you can't pay rent with it." Holiday demanded her manager Joe Glaser give her a raise shortly after.
Holiday soon returned Commodore in 1944, recording songs she made with Teddy Wilson in the 1930s like "I Cover The Waterfront", "I'll Get By", and "He's Funny That Way". She also recorded new songs that were popular at the time, including, "My Old Flame", "How Am I To Know?", "I'm Yours", and "I'll Be Seeing You", a Bing Crosby number one hit. She also recorded her version of "Embraceable You", which would later be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005.
During her time at Commodore, Billie Holiday also babysat the young Billy Crystal; his father being Jack Crystal and uncle being Milt Gabler, the co-founders of Commodore Records.
"God Bless the Child" became Holiday's most popular and covered record. It reached number 25 on the record charts in 1941 and ranked third in Billboard's top songs of the year, selling over a million records. In 1976, the song was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame. Herzog later claimed that Holiday contributed little to the lyrics of her music, adding only a few lines. He also stated that Holiday came up with the line "God Bless the Child" from a dinner conversation the two had.
On June 24, 1942, Holiday recorded "Trav'lin Light" with Paul Whiteman. Because she was still under contract with Columbia records, she couldn't release the song under her own name and instead used the pseudonym "Lady Day." The song was a minor success on the pop charts, reaching number 23, but hit number one on the R&B; charts, which were called the Harlem Hit Parade at the time.
In September 1943, ''Life'' magazine complimented Holiday on her work. They wrote, "she has the most distinct style of any popular vocalist and is imitated by other vocalists."
Milt Gabler eventually became an A&R; man for Decca Records, in addition to owning Commodore Records, and he signed Holiday to the label on August 7, 1944, when Holiday was 29. Her first recording for Decca was "Lover Man" (#16 Pop, #5 R&B;), one of her biggest hits. The success and wide distribution of the song made Holiday a staple in the pop community, allowing her to have her own solo concerts, a rarity for jazz singers in the late 40s. Gabler commented on the song's success, saying, "I made Billie a real pop singer. That was right in her. Billie loved those songs." Jimmy Davis and Roger "Ram" Ramirez, "Lover Man"'s songwriters, tried to get Holiday interested in recording the song in 1941, but she didn't take interest. In 1943, a flamboyant male torch singer by the name of Willie Dukes began singing "Lover Man" on 52nd Street. Because of Duke's success with the song, Holiday decided to add it to her live shows. The song's B-side is "No More", a song Holiday considered one of her favorites.
When it came time to record the song, Holiday begged Gabler for strings, which were associated with big name acts like Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, to accompany her in the background. "I went on my knees to him," Holiday said. "I didn't want to do it with the ordinary six pieces. I begged Milt and told him I had to have strings behind me." On October 4, 1944, Holiday walked into the recording studio to record "Lover Man" and saw the string ensemble and walked out. The musical director for the session, Toots Camarata said she was overwhelmed with joy. Another reason for Holiday wanting to use strings may have been to dodge the comparisons made between her commercially successful early work with Teddy Wilson and everything produced afterward. Her 1930s sides with Wilson used a small jazz combo. Her recordings with Decca often involved string ensembles and presented her voice in a new light.
A month later, in November, Billie Holiday returned to the Decca studio to record three songs, "That Ole Devil Called Love", "Big Stuff", and "Don't Explain". Holiday wrote "Don't Explain" after she caught her husband, Jimmy Monroe, with lipstick on his collar.
After the recording session, Holiday did not return to the studio until August 1945. She recorded "Don't Explain", "Big Stuff", "What Is This Thing Called Love?", and "You Better Go Now". Ella Fitzgerald declared "You Better Go Now" as her favorite Billie Holiday recording. "Big Stuff" and "Don't Explain" were recorded again but with additional strings and a viola.
In 1946, Holiday recorded one of her most covered and critically acclaimed songs, "Good Morning Heartache". Although the song failed to chart, it remained a staple in her live shows with three known live recordings of the song.
In September 1946, Holiday began work on what would be her only major film ''New Orleans''. She starred opposite Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman. Plagued by racism and McCarthyism, producer Jules Levey and script writer Herbert Biberman were pressured to lessen Holiday and Armstrong's role in the film as to not give the impression that black people created jazz. Their attempts failed because in 1947 Biberman was listed as one of the Hollywood Ten and sent to jail.
Holiday was not pleased that her role was reduced to that of a maid: "I thought I was going to play myself in it," she said. "I thought I was going to be Billie Holiday doing a couple of songs in a nightclub setting and that would be that. I should have known better. When I saw the script, I did." Before filming, Holiday was assigned a dramatic coach who coached her on how to properly say "Miss Marylee", the lead character's name. "So this coach was trying to get the right kind of tom feeling into this thing," Holiday said. At one point, after feeling cornered and unable to walk off the set, she burst out into tears. Louis Armstrong tried comforting her. "Better look out," he said. "I know Lady, and when she starts crying, the next thing she's going to do is start fighting." Several scenes were deleted from the film. "They had taken miles of footage of music and scenes," Holiday said, "[and] none of it was left in the picture. And very damn little of me. I know I wore a white dress for a number I did... and that was cut out of the picture." She recorded the track "The Blues Are Brewin'", for the film's soundtrack. Other songs included in the movie are "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?" and "Farewell to Storyville".
Holiday's drug addictions were a growing problem on the set. She earned more than a thousand dollars a week from her club ventures at the time, but spent most of it on heroin. Her lover Joe Guy traveled to Hollywood while Holiday was filming and supplied her with drugs. When discovered by Joe Glaser, Holiday's manager, Guy was banned from the set.
By the late 1940s, Holiday had begun recording a number of slow, sentimental ballads. The magazine ''Metronome'' expressed its concerns in 1946 about "Good Morning Heartache," saying "there's a danger that Billie's present formula will wear thin, but up to now it's wearing well."
On May 16, 1947, Holiday was arrested for the possession of narcotics in her New York apartment. On May 27, 1947, she was in court. "It was called 'The United States of America versus Billie Holiday'. And that's just the way it felt," Holiday recalled. During the trial, Holiday received notice that her lawyer was not interested in coming down to the trial and representing her. "In plain English that meant no one in the world was interested in looking out for me," Holiday said. Dehydrated and unable to hold down any food, she pled guilty and asked to be sent to the hospital. The D.A. spoke up in her defense, saying, "If your honor please, this is a case of a drug addict, but more serious, however, than most of our cases, Miss Holiday is a professional entertainer and among the higher rank as far as income was concerned." By 1947, Holiday was at her commercial peak, having made a quarter of a million dollars in the three years prior. Holiday placed second in the ''Down Beat'' poll for 1946 and 1947, her highest ranking in the poll. In ''Billboard'''s July 6 issue on 1947, Holiday ranked 5 on its annual college poll of "girl singers". Jo Stafford topped the poll. In 1946, Holiday won the ''Metronome Magazine'' popularity poll.
At the end of the trial, Holiday was sentenced to Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia, more popularly known as "Camp Cupcake". Other notable celebrities to serve time at Alderson are Martha Stewart, Sara Jane Moore (who tried to assassinate President Ford), and Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme of the Charles Manson family of murderers.
Luckily for Holiday, she was released early (March 16, 1948) because of good behavior. When she arrived at Newark, her pianist Bobby Tucker and her dog Mister were waiting for her. The dog leaped at Holiday, knocking off her hat, and tackled her to the ground. "He began lapping me and loving me like crazy," she said. A woman overheard the commotion and thought the dog was attacking Holiday. She started screaming and soon a crowd gathered and then the press showed up. "I might just as well have wheeled into Penn Station and had a quiet little get-together with the Associated Press, United Press, and International News Service," Holiday said.
Ed Fishman (who fought with Joe Glaser to be Holiday's manager) thought of the idea to throw a comeback concert at Carnegie Hall. Holiday hesitated, unsure whether audiences were ready to accept her after the arrest. She eventually gave in, and agreed to the concert.
On March 27, 1948, Holiday played Carnegie Hall to a sold-out crowd. There were 2,700 tickets sold in advance, a record at the time for the venue. Her popularity at the time was unusual in that she didn't have a current hit record. Holiday's last song to chart was "Lover Man" in 1945, which would be her final placement on the record charts during her lifetime. Holiday did 32 songs at the Carnegie concert by her count, some of which included Cole Porter's "Night and Day" and her 30s hit "Strange Fruit". During the show, someone sent Holiday a box of gardenias. "My old trademark," Holiday said. "I took them out of box and fastened them smack to the side of my head without even looking twice." There was a hatpin in the gardenias and Holiday, unknowingly, stuck the needle deep into the side of her head. "I didn't feel anything until the blood started rushing down in my eyes and ears," she said. After the third curtain call, Holiday passed out.
On April 27, 1948, Bob Sylvester and her promoter Al Wilde arranged for Billie Holiday to do a Broadway show. Titled ''Holiday on Broadway'', it sold out and was a success for a while. "The regular music critics and drama critics came and treated us like we were legit," Holiday said. Despite the success, the show closed after three weeks.
Holiday was arrested again on January 22, 1949, inside her room at San Francisco's Hotel Mark Twain.
Holiday stated that she began using hard drugs in the early 1940s. She married trombonist Jimmy Monroe on August 25, 1941. While still married to Monroe, she became romantically involved with trumpeter Joe Guy, who was also her drug dealer, and eventually became his common-law wife. She finally divorced Monroe in 1947 and also split with Guy.
In October 1949, Holiday recorded "Crazy He Calls Me", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010. Gabler said the song was a hit, likely making it her most successful recording for Decca after "Lover Man". The record charts of the 1940s did not list songs outside the top 30, making it impossible to recognize minor pop hits. Also, by the late 1940s, despite her popularity and concert drawing power, Holiday's singles received little radio airplay. This may have been because of the bad reputation she had up to that point.
Because of her 1947 conviction, Holiday's New York City Cabaret Card was revoked, which kept her from working anywhere that sold alcohol for the remaining 12 years of her life.
The Cabaret system started in 1940 and was designed to prevent people of "bad character" from working on licensed premises. A performer had to renew his or her license every two years. This system lasted until 1967. Clubs that sold alcohol in New York were among the highest paying venues in the country. Club owners knew blacklisted performers had limited work options, so they would offer them a smaller salary. This greatly reduced Holiday's earning power. She hadn't been receiving proper royalties for her work until she signed with Decca, so her main source of revenue were her club concerts. The problem worsened when Holiday's records went out of print in the 1950s. She seldom received any money from royalties in her latter years. For instance, in 1958 Holiday received a royalty check of only 11 dollars. Also, Holiday's lawyer during the late 1950s, Earle Warren Zaidins, failed to register with BMI on all but two songs she had written or co-written, costing her potential revenue.
In 1948, Holiday played at the Ebony Club, which, because she lost her cabaret card, was against the law. Her manager at the time, John Levy, was convinced he could get her card back and allowed her to open without one. "I opened scared," Holiday said, "[I was] expecting the cops to come in any chorus and carry me off. But nothing happened. I was a huge success."
Also in 1948, Holiday recorded Gershwin's "I Loves You Porgy". The single was heard by up and coming act Nina Simone. Simone covered the tune 1958, and it ended up becoming her sole top 40 hit in America.
In 1950, Holiday appeared in the Universal-International short film '''Sugar Chile' Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet'', where she sang "God Bless the Child" and "Now, Baby or Never".
On March 28, 1957, Holiday married Louis McKay, a Mafia enforcer, who like most of the men in her life was abusive, but he did try to get her off drugs. They were separated at the time of her death, but McKay had plans to start a chain of Billie Holiday vocal studios, à la Arthur Murray dance schools.
Holiday's late recordings on Verve constitute about a third of her commercial recorded legacy and are as popular as her earlier work for the Columbia, Commodore and Decca labels. In later years, her voice became more fragile, but it never lost the edge that had always made it so distinctive.
Holiday's autobiography, ''Lady Sings the Blues'', was ghostwritten by William Dufty and published in 1956. Dufty, a ''New York Post'' writer and editor then married to Holiday's close friend Maely Dufty, wrote the book quickly from a series of conversations with the singer in the Duftys' 93rd Street apartment. He drew on the work of earlier interviewers as well and intended to let Holiday tell her story in her own way.
To accompany her autobiography, Holiday released an LP in June 1956 titled ''Lady Sings the Blues''. The album did not have any new material other than the title track, "Too Marvelous For Words", "Willow Weep for Me", and "I Thought About You", but had new recordings of Holiday's biggest hits. These included "Trav'lin' Light" "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child". On December 22, 1956, ''Billboard'' magazine reviewed ''Lady Sings the Blues'', calling it a worthy musical complement to her autobiography. "Holiday is in good voice now," said the reviewer, "and these new readings will be much appreciated by her following." "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child" were called classics, and "Good Morning Heartache", another reissued track in the LP, was also noted positively.
On November 10, 1956, Holiday performed two concerts before packed audiences at Carnegie Hall, a major accomplishment for any artist, especially a black artist of the segregated period of American history. Live recordings of the second Carnegie Hall concert were released on a Verve/HMV album in the UK in late 1961 called ''The Essential Billie Holiday''. The thirteen tracks included on this album featured her own songs, "I Love My Man", "Don't Explain" and "Fine And Mellow", together with other songs closely associated with her, including "Body and Soul", "My Man", and "Lady Sings the Blues" (her lyrics accompanied a tune by pianist Herbie Nichols).
The liner notes on this album were written partly by Gilbert Millstein of ''The New York Times'', who, according to these notes, served as narrator in the Carnegie Hall concerts. Interspersed among Holiday's songs, Millstein read aloud four lengthy passages from her autobiography ''Lady Sings The Blues''. He later wrote:
Millstein continued:
The critic Nat Hentoff of ''Down Beat'' magazine, who attended the Carnegie Hall concert, wrote the remainder of the sleeve notes on the 1961 album. He wrote of Holiday's performance:
Hentoff continued:
Her performance of "Fine and Mellow" on CBS's ''The Sound of Jazz'' program is memorable for her interplay with her long-time friend Lester Young. Both were less than two years from death.
Holiday first toured Europe in 1954 as part of a Leonard Feather package that also included Buddy DeFranco and Red Norvo. When she returned almost five years later, she made one of her last television appearances for Granada's ''Chelsea at Nine'' in London. Her final studio recordings were made for MGM in 1959, with lush backing from Ray Ellis and his Orchestra, who had also accompanied her on Columbia's ''Lady in Satin'' album the previous year—see below. The MGM sessions were released posthumously on a self-titled album, later re-titled and re-released as ''Last Recordings''.
Although childless, Billie Holiday had two godchildren: singer Billie Lorraine Feather, daughter of Leonard Feather, and Bevan Dufty, son of William Dufty.
Gilbert Millstein of ''The New York Times'', who had been the narrator at Billie Holiday's 1956 Carnegie Hall concerts and had partly written the sleeve notes for the album ''The Essential Billie Holiday'' (see above), described her death in these same 1961-dated sleeve notes:
Frank Sinatra admired Holiday, having been influenced by her performances on 52nd Street as a young man. He told ''Ebony'' magazine in 1958 about her impact:
Billie Holiday began her recording career on a high note with her first major release "Riffin' the Scotch" selling 5,000 copies. The song was released under the band name "Benny Goodman & his Orchestra." accompanied Holiday more than any other musician. He and Holiday have 95 recordings together.
In July 1936, Holiday began releasing sides under her own name. These songs were released under the band name "Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra." Most noteworthy, the popular jazz standard "Summertime," sold well and was listed on the available pop charts at the time at number 12, the first time the jazz standard charted under any artist. Only Billy Stewart's R&B; version of "Summertime" reached a higher chart placement than Holiday's, charting at number 10 thirty years later in 1966.
Holiday had 16 best selling songs in 1937, making the year her most commercially successful. It was in this year that Holiday scored her sole number one hit as a featured vocalist on the available pop charts of the 1930s, "Carelessly". The hit "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm", was also recorded by Ray Noble, Glen Gray and Fred Astaire whose rendering was a best seller for weeks. Holiday's version ranked 6 on the year-end single chart available for 1937.
In 1939, Holiday recorded her biggest selling record, "Strange Fruit" for Commodore, charting at number 16 on the available pop charts for the 1930s.
In 1940, ''Billboard'' began publishing its modern pop charts, which included the Best Selling Retail Records chart, the precursor to the Hot 100. None of Holiday's songs placed on the modern pop charts, partly because ''Billboard'' only published the first ten slots of the charts in some issues. Minor hits and independent releases had no way of being spotlighted.
"God Bless the Child", which went on to sell over a million copies, ranked number 3 on Billboard's year-end top songs of 1941.
On October 24, 1942, Billboard began issuing its R&B; charts. Two of Holiday's songs placed on the chart, "Trav'lin' Light" with Paul Whiteman, which topped the chart, and "Lover Man", which reached number 5.
"Trav'lin' Light" also reached 18 on Billboard's year-end chart.
Year | Single | Chart positions | ||||
! style="width:40px;" | ! style="width:40px;" | |||||
1934 | 6 | |||||
12 | ||||||
6 | ||||||
12 | ||||||
18 | ||||||
5 | ||||||
17 | ||||||
9 | ||||||
12 | ||||||
9 | ||||||
18 | ||||||
3 | ||||||
4 | ||||||
20 | ||||||
5 | ||||||
3 | ||||||
4 | ||||||
13 | ||||||
8 | ||||||
1 | ||||||
12 | ||||||
11 | ||||||
12 | ||||||
7 | ||||||
15 | ||||||
16 | ||||||
11 | ||||||
10 | ||||||
10 | ||||||
18 | ||||||
14 | ||||||
12 | ||||||
20 | ||||||
2 | ||||||
1939 | 16 | |||||
1941 | 25 | |||||
1942 | 23 | 1 | ||||
1945 | 16 | 5 |
Never Recorded:
{| class=wikitable |- | colspan="6" style="text-align:center;"| Billie Holiday: Grammy Hall of Fame Awards |- ! Year Recorded ! Title ! Genre ! Label ! Year Inducted ! Notes |- align=center | 1949 | "Crazy He Calls Me" | Jazz (single) | Decca | 2010 | |- align=center | 1944 | "Embraceable You" | Jazz (single) | Commodore | 2005 | |- align=center | 1958 | ''Lady in Satin'' | Jazz (album) | Columbia | 2000 | |- align=center | 1945 | "Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?)" | Jazz (single) | Decca | 1989 | |- align=center | 1939 | "Strange Fruit" | Jazz (single) | Commodore | 1978 | Listed also in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress in 2002 |- align=center | 1941 | "God Bless the Child" | Jazz (single) | Okeh | 1976 | |}
{| class=wikitable |- ! Year ! Title ! Label ! Result |- align=center | 2002 | ''Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday'' | Columbia 1933–1944 | Winner |- align=center | 1994 | ''The Complete Billie Holiday'' | Verve 1945–1959 | Winner |- align=center | 1992 | ''Billie Holiday — The Complete Decca Recordings'' | Verve 1944–1950 | Winner |- align=center | 1980 | ''Billie Holiday — Giants of Jazz'' | Time-Life | Winner |}
Over the years, there have been many tributes to Billie Holiday, including "The Day Lady Died," a 1959 poem by Frank O'Hara.
(1) = Available on Audio (2) = Available on DVD
Category:Article Feedback Pilot Category:1915 births Category:1959 deaths Category:African American female singers Category:African American singer-songwriters Category:Alcohol-related deaths in New York Category:American buskers Category:American jazz singers Category:Blues Hall of Fame inductees Category:Classic female blues singers Category:Columbia Records artists Category:Deaths from cirrhosis Category:Decca Records artists Category:English-language singers Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Musicians from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Category:Musicians from Baltimore, Maryland Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Swing singers Category:Torch singers Category:Traditional pop music singers Category:Vocalion Records artists Category:Women in jazz
ar:بيلي هوليدي an:Billie Holiday bs:Billie Holiday bg:Били Холидей ca:Billie Holiday cs:Billie Holiday da:Billie Holiday de:Billie Holiday et:Billie Holiday el:Μπίλι Χόλιντεϊ es:Billie Holiday eo:Billie Holiday fa:بیلی هالیدی fr:Billie Holiday fy:Billie Holiday gl:Billie Holiday ko:빌리 홀리데이 hr:Billie Holiday io:Billie Holiday id:Billie Holiday it:Billie Holiday he:בילי הולידיי ka:ბილი ჰოლიდეი sw:Billie Holiday la:Gulielma Holiday lt:Billie Holiday hu:Billie Holiday nl:Billie Holiday ja:ビリー・ホリデイ no:Billie Holiday oc:Billie Holiday nds:Billie Holiday pl:Billie Holiday pt:Billie Holiday ro:Billie Holiday ru:Билли Холидей sc:Billie Holiday scn:Billie Holiday simple:Billie Holiday sr:Били Холидеј fi:Billie Holiday sv:Billie Holiday tl:Billie Holiday th:บิลลี ฮอลิเดย์ tr:Billie Holiday uk:Біллі Холідей yo:Billie Holiday zh-yue:Billie Holiday zh:比莉·霍利戴This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Demetri Martin (born May 25, 1973) is an American comedian, actor, artist, musician, writer and humorist. Martin is best known for his work as a stand-up comedian, contributor on ''The Daily Show'' and for his Comedy Central show ''Important Things with Demetri Martin''.
Since late 2005, he has been credited as a contributor on ''The Daily Show'', on which he has appeared as the named "Senior Youth Correspondent" and on which he hosts a segment called "Trendspotting". He has used this segment to talk about so-called hip trends among youth such as hookahs, wine, guerilla marketing and Xbox 360. A piece about social networking featured his profile on MySpace. On March 22, 2007, Demetri made another appearance on ''The Daily Show'', talking about the Viacom lawsuit against Google and YouTube.
He has recorded a comedy CD/DVD titled ''These Are Jokes'', which was released on September 26, 2006. This album also features ''Saturday Night Live'' member Will Forte and stand-up comedian Leo Allen.
Martin returned to ''The Daily Show'' on March 22, 2006, as the new Youth Correspondent, calling his segment "Professional Important News with Demetri Martin". In 2007, he starred in a Fountains of Wayne music video for "Someone to Love" as Seth Shapiro, a character in the song. He also starred in the video for the new Travis single "Selfish Jean", in which he wears multiple t-shirts with lyrics written on them.
On September 2, 2007, Martin appeared on the season finale of the HBO series ''Flight of the Conchords''. He appeared as a keytar player named Demetri.
He also had a part in the movie ''The Rocker'' (2008) starring Rainn Wilson. Martin played the part of the videographer when the band in the movie was making their first music video.
In 2009, he hosted and starred in his own television show called ''Important Things With Demetri Martin'' on Comedy Central. Later in June, it was announced his show had been renewed for a second season. The second season premiered, again on Comedy Central, on February 4, 2010. Martin has stated that ''Important Things'' will not return for a third season.
Prior to completing work on his second season, Martin starred in the comedy-drama film ''Taking Woodstock'' (2009), directed by Ang Lee, which premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. In the film Martin plays Elliot Tiber, a closeted gay artist who has given up his ambitions in the city to move upstate and help his old-world Jewish family run their Catskill Mountains motel. The film is based on the book written by Tiber.
On April 25, 2011, Martin released his first book, titled ''This Is a Book''.
Martin also signed a blind script deal with CBS in October 2010 to produce, write, and star in his own television series.
After CBS was shown the pilot for the series, they decided not to air it.
On August 11, 2011, Fox ordered a presentation of a new animated show they might air.
The title of the special comes from a lengthy palindromic poem that Martin wrote; the words "if I" are at the center of the poem.
Martin moved to Santa Monica, California in 2009.
Year | ! Title | ! Role | Notes |
2002 | ''Analyze That'' | Personal Assistant | |
2003 | ''If I''| | Himself | British television special, also writer |
2004 | ''12:21''| | Himself | short film, also writer |
2004 | ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien''| | Himself | 1 episode, series writer |
2007 | "''Someone to Love (Fountains of Wayne song)Someone to Love''" || | Seth Shapiro | ''Fountains of Wayne'' music video |
2007 | ''Flight of the Conchords (TV series)Flight of the Conchords'' || | Demetri | Season 1, Episode 12 |
2008 | ''The Rocker (film)The Rocker'' || | Kip (a music video producer) | |
2009 | ''Paper Heart''| | Himself | |
2009 | ''Post Grad''| | Ad Exec | |
2009 | ''Moon People''| | lead role and writer | |
2009 | ''Taking Woodstock''| | Elliot Tiber | lead role |
2009–2010 | ''Important Things with Demetri Martin''| | Himself / Various | lead role, writer, series creator, executive producer, and composer |
2011 | ''Take Me Home Tonight (film)Take Me Home Tonight'' || | Goldman Sachs Employee | supporting role |
2011 | ''Contagion (film)Contagion'' || | ||
2011 | ''Conan''| | Himself | guest |
Category:1973 births Category:Actors from New Jersey Category:Actors from New York City Category:American comedians Category:American comedy musicians Category:American comedy writers Category:American film actors Category:American humorists Category:American people of Greek descent Category:American stand-up comedians Category:American television actors Category:American television writers Category:Living people Category:New York University alumni Category:Writers from New Jersey Category:Writers from New York City Category:Writers Guild of America Award winners Category:Yale University alumni
cs:Demetri Martin da:Demetri Martin de:Demetri Martin fr:Demetri Martin gl:Demetri Martin it:Demetri Martin simple:Demitri Martin fi:Demetri Martin sv:Demetri MartinThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
name | Lester Young |
---|---|
background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
birth name | Lester Willis Young |
alias | "Prez" |
born | August 27, 1909Woodville, Mississippi, U.S. |
died | March 15, 1959New York City, New York, U.S. |
origin | Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. |
instrument | Tenor saxophone, clarinet |
genre | Jazz |
occupation | Saxophonist, clarinetist |
years active | 1933–1959 |
label | Verve |
notable instruments | }} |
Lester Willis Young (August 27, 1909 – March 15, 1959), nicknamed "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He also played trumpet, violin, and drums.
Coming to prominence while a member of Count Basie's orchestra, Young was one of the most influential players on his instrument, playing with a cool tone and using sophisticated harmonies. He invented or popularized much of the hipster ethos which came to be associated with the music.
Lester Young played in his family's band in both the vaudeville and carnival circuits. He left the family band in 1927 at the age of 18 because he refused to tour in the Southern United States, where Jim Crow laws were in effect and racial segregation was required in public facilities.
Young left the Basie band to replace Hawkins in Fletcher Henderson's orchestra. He soon left Henderson to play in the Andy Kirk band (for six months) before returning to Basie. While with Basie, Young made small-group recordings for Milt Gabler's Commodore Records, ''The Kansas City Sessions''. Although they were recorded in New York (in 1938, with a reunion in 1944), they are named after the group, the Kansas City Seven, and comprised Buck Clayton, Dicky Wells, Basie, Young, Freddie Green, Rodney Richardson and Jo Jones. Young played clarinet as well as tenor in these sessions. He was a master of the clarinet, and there too, his style was entirely his own. As well as the ''Kansas City Sessions'', his clarinet work from 1938-39 is documented on recordings with Basie, Billie Holiday, Basie small groups, and the organist Glenn Hardman.
After Young's clarinet was stolen in 1939, he abandoned the instrument until about 1957. That year Norman Granz gave him one and urged him to play it (with far different results at that stage in Young's life - see below).
During this period, Young accompanied the singer Billie Holiday in a couple of studio sessions in 1940 and 1941, and also made a small set of recordings with Nat "King" Cole (their first of several collaborations) in June 1942. His studio recordings are relatively sparse during the 1942 to 1943 period, largely due to the American Federation of Musicians' recording ban.
In December 1943, Young returned to the Basie fold for a 10-month stint, cut short by his being drafted into the army during World War II (see below). Recordings made during this and subsequent periods suggest Young was beginning to make much greater use of a plastic reed, which tended to give his playing a somewhat heavier, breathier tone (although still quite smooth compared to that of many other players). While he never abandoned the wooden reed, he used the plastic reed a significant share of the time from 1943 until the end of his life. Another cause for the thickening of his tone around this time was a change in saxophone mouthpiece from a metal Otto Link to an ebonite Brilhart. In August 1944, Young appeared alongside drummer Jo Jones, trumpeter Harry "Sweets" Edison, and fellow tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet in Gjon Mili's short film ''Jammin' the Blues''.
Some jazz historians have argued that Young's playing power declined in the years following his army experience, though critics such as Scott Yanow disagree with this entirely. Recordings show that his playing began to change before he was drafted. Some argue that Young's playing had an increasingly emotional slant to it, and the post-war period featured some of his greatest renditions of ballads.
While the quality and consistency of his playing ebbed gradually in the latter half of the 1940s and into the early 1950s, he also gave some brilliant performances during this stretch. Especially noteworthy are his performances with JATP in 1946, 1949, and 1950. With Young at the 1949 JATP concert at Carnegie Hall were Charlie Parker and Roy Eldridge, and Young's solo on "Lester Leaps In" at that concert is a particular standout among his performances in the latter half of his career.
He emerged from this treatment improved. In January 1956 he recorded two Granz-produced sessions featuring pianist Teddy Wilson (who had led the Billie Holiday recordings with Young in the 1930s), trumpet player Roy Eldridge, trombonist Vic Dickenson, bassist Gene Ramey, and drummer Jo Jones - available on the ''Jazz Giants '56'' and ''Prez and Teddy'' albums. 1956 was a relatively good year for Lester Young, including a tour of Europe with Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Quartet and a successful stint at Olivia's Patio Lounge in Washington, DC.
Throughout the 1940s and 50s, Young had sat in on Count Basie Orchestra gigs from time to time. The best-known of these is their July 1957 appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival, the line-up including many of Lester's old buddies: Jo Jones, Roy Eldridge, Illinois Jacquet and Jimmy Rushing. His playing was in better shape, and he produced some of the old, smooth toned flow of the 1930s. Among other tunes he played a moving "Polkadots and Moonbeams", which was a favorite of his at that time.
Lester Young made his final studio recordings and live performances in Paris in March 1959 with drummer Kenny Clarke at the tail end of an abbreviated European tour during which he ate next to nothing and virtually drank himself to death. He died in the early morning hours of March 15, 1959, only hours after arriving back in New York, at the age of 49. He was buried at the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn. According to jazz critic Leonard Feather, who rode with Holiday in a taxi to Young's funeral, she said, "I'll be the next one to go." Holiday died four months later at age 44.
Young's playing style influenced many other tenor saxophonists. Perhaps the most famous and successful of these were Stan Getz and Dexter Gordon, but he also influenced many in the cool movement such as Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, and Gerry Mulligan. Paul Quinichette modeled his style so closely on Young's that he was sometimes referred to as the 'Vice Prez' (sic). Sonny Stitt began to incorporate elements from Lester Young's approach when he made the transition to tenor saxophone. Lester Young also had a direct influence on young Charlie Parker ("Bird"), and thus the entire be-bop movement. Indeed, recordings of Parker on tenor sax are similar in style to that of Young. Lesser known saxophonists, such as Warne Marsh, were strongly influenced by Young.
Don Byron recorded the album ''Ivey-Divey'' in gratitude of what he learned from studying Lester Young's work, modeled after a 1946 trio date with Buddy Rich and Nat King Cole. "Ivey-Divey" was one of Lester Young's common eccentric phrases.
Young is a major character in English writer Geoff Dyer's 1991 fictional book about jazz, ''But Beautiful''. "The Resurrection of Lady Lester" by OyamO (Charles F. Gordon) is a play and published book depicting Young's life; subtitled "A Poetic Mood Song Based on the Legend of Lester Young".
In the 1986 film ''Round Midnight'', the fictional main character Dale Turner, played by Dexter Gordon, was partly based on Young - incorporating flashback references to his army experiences, and loosely depicting his time in Paris and his return to New York just before his death.
Acid Jazz/boogaloo band the Greyboy Allstars song "Tenor Man" is a tribute to Young. On their 1999 album "Live", saxophonist Karl Denson introduces the song by saying, "now some folks may have told you that Lester Young is out of style, but we're here to tell you that the Prez is happenin' right now." Those were literally the lyrics Rahsaan Roland Kirk wrote and sang to the melody of the Charles Mingus elegy, "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat".
Peter Straub's short story collection ''Magic Terror'' (2000) contains a story called "Pork Pie Hat", a fictional account of the life of Lester Young. Straub was inspired by Young's appearance on the 1957 CBS-TV show, ''The Sound of Jazz'', which he watched repeatedly, wondering how such a genius could have ended up such a human wreck.
He is said to have popularized the term cool as slang for something fashionable. Another slang term he coined was the term "bread" for money. He would ask "How does the bread smell?" when asking how much a gig was going to pay.
Category:1909 births Category:1959 deaths Category:People from Woodville, Mississippi Category:Swing saxophonists Category:Swing clarinetists Category:Cool jazz saxophonists Category:American clarinetists Category:American jazz saxophonists Category:American jazz clarinetists Category:Burials at the Cemetery of the Evergreens Category:Vaudeville performers Category:Count Basie Orchestra members Category:African American musicians Category:Savoy Records artists Category:Vocalion Records artists Category:People from the Kansas City metropolitan area Category:People from New Orleans, Louisiana Category:Alcohol-related deaths in New York
da:Lester Young de:Lester Young el:Λέστερ Γιανγκ es:Lester Young eo:Lester Young fa:لستر یانگ fr:Lester Young it:Lester Young he:לסטר יאנג lb:Lester Young nl:Lester Young ja:レスター・ヤング no:Lester Young nn:Lester Young nds:Lester Young pl:Lester Young pt:Lester Young ru:Янг, Лестер fi:Lester Young sv:Lester Young uk:Лестер Янг zh:莱斯特·杨
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
The World News (WN) Network, has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to user privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for wn.com, as well as e-mail newsletters.
We do not collect personally identifiable information about you, except when you provide it to us. For example, if you submit an inquiry to us or sign up for our newsletter, you may be asked to provide certain information such as your contact details (name, e-mail address, mailing address, etc.).
When you submit your personally identifiable information through wn.com, you are giving your consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information as set forth in this Privacy Policy. If you would prefer that we not collect any personally identifiable information from you, please do not provide us with any such information. We will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information to third parties without your consent, except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy.
Except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy, we will use the information you provide us only for the purpose of responding to your inquiry or in connection with the service for which you provided such information. We may forward your contact information and inquiry to our affiliates and other divisions of our company that we feel can best address your inquiry or provide you with the requested service. We may also use the information you provide in aggregate form for internal business purposes, such as generating statistics and developing marketing plans. We may share or transfer such non-personally identifiable information with or to our affiliates, licensees, agents and partners.
We may retain other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Such third parties may be provided with access to personally identifiable information needed to perform their functions, but may not use such information for any other purpose.
In addition, we may disclose any information, including personally identifiable information, we deem necessary, in our sole discretion, to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal proceeding or governmental request.
We do not want you to receive unwanted e-mail from us. We try to make it easy to opt-out of any service you have asked to receive. If you sign-up to our e-mail newsletters we do not sell, exchange or give your e-mail address to a third party.
E-mail addresses are collected via the wn.com web site. Users have to physically opt-in to receive the wn.com newsletter and a verification e-mail is sent. wn.com is clearly and conspicuously named at the point of
collection.If you no longer wish to receive our newsletter and promotional communications, you may opt-out of receiving them by following the instructions included in each newsletter or communication or by e-mailing us at michaelw(at)wn.com
The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during registration and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100 percent secure, however. Therefore, though we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
If we decide to change our e-mail practices, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we think appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
If we make material changes to our e-mail practices, we will notify you here, by e-mail, and by means of a notice on our home page.
The advertising banners and other forms of advertising appearing on this Web site are sometimes delivered to you, on our behalf, by a third party. In the course of serving advertisements to this site, the third party may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. For more information on cookies, you can visit www.cookiecentral.com.
As we continue to develop our business, we might sell certain aspects of our entities or assets. In such transactions, user information, including personally identifiable information, generally is one of the transferred business assets, and by submitting your personal information on Wn.com you agree that your data may be transferred to such parties in these circumstances.