Billie Holiday, The Complete Verve Studio Master Takes - 1h 11m 17s

Tracks & Durations

1. I Don't Want To Cry Anymore	3:55
2. Prelude To a Kiss	5:34
3. (I Don't Stand a) Ghost Of a Chance (With You)	4:28
4. When Your Lover Has Gone	4:59
5. Gone With the Wind	3:25
6. Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone	4:20
7. It Had To Be You	4:02
8. Nice Work If You Can Get It	3:50
9. Come Rain Or Come Shine	4:23
10. I Gotta Right To Sing the Blues	5:53
11. What's New?	4:17
12. A Fine Romance	3:33
13. I Hadn't Anyone Till You	4:04
14. I Get a Kick Out Of You	5:41
15. Everything I Have Is Yours	4:31
16. Isn't This a Lovely Day?	4:11

Note: The information about this album is acquired from the publicly available resources and we are not responsible for their accuracy.

Review

The final decade of Billie Holiday's life was one in which the singer, in the clutches of drugs and poor taste in men, slowly withered away. Amid this tragedy, Lady Day carried on with a bittersweet dignity that seemed only to grow as the years passed. Her matchless phrasing added a profundity to a worn-out lyric and her dark, ragged timbre exuded a venerable wisdom, but at the same time she acquired a faded vulnerability not heard in her earlier years. Collecting her studio work between 1952 and 1959 (when she died), this six-CD/100-song set offers a long and loving look at the Holiday of this era. She's joined here by the crème of jazz with an orchestra session at the end. And whereas The Complete Billie Holiday on Verve, 1945-1959 also offers uneven rehearsal tapes as well as live and radio performances, this collection zeroes in on prime studio cuts. This is for lovers of Lady Day, but not the obsessive. --Tad HendricksonFor many people, Billie Holiday (a.k.a. "Lady Day") wasn't just a jazz singer. She was the jazz singer, and remains so today. Thanks to her lifelong struggles with men, alcohol, and drug addiction, Holiday is often viewed as an archetypal example of the suffering artist--a singer who sang her life. And there's no denying the often heartrending quality of the classic recordings she made with musicians like Ben Webster, Oscar Peterson, and Harry "Sweets" Edison.

But Holiday's sophisticated sense of rhythm, subtle melodic improvisations, and nuanced way with a lyric enabled her to invest everything she sang with new meaning, from swinging dance tunes to mournful ballads. And her cool, effortless manner only heightened the emotional impact of her delivery. She influenced several generations of singers and instrumentalists alike, and stands shoulder-to-shoulder alongside such iconic jazz figures as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Charlie Parker.

Original recordings produced by Norman Granz and others.

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