Billie Holiday and the Best Video the Daddy Ever Saw

"Although her warm, feathery voice inhabited a limited range, she used it like an accomplished jazz instrumentalist, stretching and condensing phrases in an ever-shifting dialogue with accompanying musicians. Famous for delivering lyrics a bit behind the beat, she alternately endowed them with sadness, sensuality, languor, and irony."
--All About Jazz
"I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That's all I know...You can't copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music."
--Billie Holiday
"You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave."
--Billie Holiday

Listen up. The daddy wants to ask you something. What’s the greatest video you ever saw?

The daddy votes for the video “Fine and Mellow.” It's the one where the great jazz singer Billie Holiday sings a bitter-sweet blues—her own composition—backed up by what may be the greatest collection of jazz musicians of the swing era: Ben Webster, Lester Young, and Coleman Hawkins on sax; Jerry Mulligan on baritone sax; Milton Hinton on bass; Vic Dickerson on trombone; Doc Cheatham and Roy Eldridge on trumpets, to name a few.

Billie Holiday

The story of Billie Holiday’s early life is shrouded in mystery. "Lady Sings the Blues," her autobiography, has been proven to be inaccurate. But as far as the daddy can tell, these basics seem to be true:

* That she was born Eleanora Fagan in Aril 7, 1915, in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of Clarence Holiday, a guy who apparently abandoned her and refused to see or help her until she became a success;
* That, sometimes in the mid-twenties, her mother moved to New York, leaving her in the care of relatives who Billie claimed abused her (At the age of 10, she reported that she was raped);
* That, in 1928, she went to live with her mother;
* That, in 1933, after singing in a number of small clubs, she was discovered by talent scout John Hammond who immediately arranged three recordings for her with Benny Goodman and set up singing engagements for her around New York;
* That, in 1935, under the direction of the great pianist Teddy Wilson, she made a number of recordings. In fact, between 1935 and 1942, she made some of the greatest recordings in jazz, steadily expanding her fan base from black jukebox audiences to radio and club listeners throughout the United States.

Why video was so great?

Billy’s voice. The video exposes the fact that, by the 1950's, after years of destructive drugs and abusive men, her voice had lost some of its projection and vitality. At the same, she retained that distinctive sound and somehow gave her performance perhaps a more effective, emotional delivery.

The interplay between Billie and Lester. The story goes that Billie and Lester, who were once very close, hadn’t spoken in years. They say Lester tired of watching Billie go from one abusive man to another or one drug dealer to another as she slid down the slippery and deathly slope of drug addiction and moved away from her. Whatever, the video clearly showed the interplay between them with Billie nodding her head and smiling approvingly as Lester played the blues the way she loved it--sweet and slow. Yes, she still loved "The Prez," the name she gave him, she said, because he played the saxophone so sweetly.

Musical approaches. But the video displayed more than the relationship between Billie and Lester. It also put up front the difference in musical approach between Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins. Hawkins was known as the fast playing, let-it-all hang out honker; and Lester was known as the economical, sweet playing icon of the “cool jazz’ sound. So it was interesting, indeed, that they both agreed to appear on the same program and play together. Both sound great. And there was no honking. On this night, all the soloists bowed down and played the blues the way “Lady Day" likes it-- slow and bittersweet.

Roy Eldridge. You can take this to the bank: nobody—not Louie Armstrong, not Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan, not Miles Davis— played the trumpet with more passion or more discipline than Eldridge. Indeed, you could argue that everyone knew who would take the final bow to Lady Day on this song-- that everyone knew Roy's soloing would lift the collective group's performance to the heavens and bring it home for sho.

Watch Billie's smile broaden and her head rock with more intensity to the backbeat as Roy, like a carpenter walling a home, builds and builds on his solo. And when he builds to the point where he just screams through his trumpet, watch a smiling Billie turn and look at the other musicians as if to say "Check out this guy! Can you believe how great he's playing?"

But don't believe me. Click here on Billie Holiday and see for yourself. But, first, answer the daddy:

What’s the best video you ever saw?
-----------------------------------------
Fine & Mellow

by Billie Holiday

My man don't love me
Treats me oh so mean
My man he don't love me
Treats me awfully
He's the, lowest man
That I've ever see

He wears high trimmed pan
Stripes are really yellow
He wears high trimmed pan
Stripes are really yellow
But when he starts in to love me
He's so fine and mellow

Love will make you drink and gamble
Make you stay out all night long repeat
Love will make you drink and gamble
Make you stay out all night long
Love will make you do things
That you know is wrong

But if you treat me right baby
I’ll stay home everyday
But if you treat me right baby
I’ll stay home everyday
But you're so mean to me baby
I know you're gonna drive me away

Love is just like the faucet
It turns off and on
Love is just like the faucet
It turns off and on
Sometimes when you think it's on baby
It has turned off and gone
-------------------------------