Billie Holiday – Fine and Mellow (LIVE in 1957)– The Top 10 pearls in Jazz history
If Ella was the supreme portrayer of lyrics, Billie Holiday was peerless when it came to conveying the emotion in a song. This 1957 TV soundtrack (actually this issue is the dress rehearsal, but the televised version is equally good) puts her in her preferred setting: a jam session with her swing era colleagues. She is both an emotionally charged singer, and an improvising musician, taking her turn amid the finest soloists of the age.
PD: if you watch the video of the TV show, you’ll see it was practically obligatory for this generation of players to wear a hat in the studio.
