{"id":6574,"date":"2015-04-08T23:14:10","date_gmt":"2015-04-09T06:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=6574"},"modified":"2015-04-12T22:32:31","modified_gmt":"2015-04-13T05:32:31","slug":"billie-holiday-at-100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2015\/04\/billie-holiday-at-100\/","title":{"rendered":"Billie Holiday At 100"},"content":{"rendered":"

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”1MnnYxB4LiuDaCbGHN6uqq2Bhr80lXdG”]<\/p>\n

Yesterday was Billie Holiday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 100th birthday. Rarely has the centenary of a jazz artist received as much notice. There have been tributes galore, special television and radio reports and long articles in major publications. This Rifftides<\/em> remembrance of Holiday is confined to a short period of her early career in which she extended with a big band what she started with small groups in the 1930s<\/p>\n

\"Billie<\/a>Holiday sang with Count Basie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s band for a year, but her contract with a different company from Basie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prevented her from making studio recordings with him. Fortunately, air checks of radio broadcasts by that incomparable band captured three instances of Holiday with Basie in 1937. They are contained in Count Basie and his Orchestra: America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s # 1 Band<\/em> <\/a>(Columbia\/Legacy). These rare performances let us understand why so many people who heard her with Basie have written and talked about it as the ultimate Holiday experience. Her use of rhythm, her time sense, allows her to float above the ensemble much as tenor saxophonist Lester Young did, taking the same kinds of chances with phrasing, stretching without effort across the bar lines. She has transformed her Louis Armstrong inspiration into a marvel of individual artistry. Her way with lyrics is unlike that of any singer at the time other than Armstrong\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. My guess is that her example had a profound effect on Bing Crosby, who was the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s star vocalist when she emerged.<\/p>\n

If you want to know who was influencing the young Frank Sinatra, if you have any doubt where Peggy Lee came from, listen to Holiday on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I Can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Get Started\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They Can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Take That Away From Me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Hear her turn the silly \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Swing, Brother, Swing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d into a triumph. Billie Holiday is transcendent on these air checks. For a few bars near the end of “I Can’t Get Started,” behind her we hear a bit of obbligato by her alter-ego, inspiration and best friend Lester Young.<\/p>\n