It’s April First. We have no Rifftides April Fool jokes, tricks, cartoons or gag shots. We have Billie Holiday. This is a 1937 recording with Buck Clayton, trumpet; Buster Bailey, clarinet; Lester Young, tenor saxophone; Teddy Wilson, piano; Freddie Green, guitar; Walter Page, bass; and Jo Jones, drums. Ms. Holiday sings about the saddest kind of fooling.
Twenty-one years later, Art Ford featured Billie Holiday on his Jazz Party television program. She revisited “Foolin’ Myself†and two other songs indelibly associated with her. This was July 10, 1958, a year—almost to the day—before she died.
Mal Waldron, Ms. Holiday’s last music director, was at the piano. The other players were her old pal Buck Clayton, trumpet; Tyree Glenn, trombone; Hank D’Amico, clarinet; Georgie Auld, tenor saxophone; Mary Osborne, guitar; Vinnie Burke, bass; and Osie Johnson, drums.