Remembering Billie Holiday (1915-1959)

Remembering Billie Holiday (1915-1959)

free sheet music pdf Billie Holiday

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sheet music pdf Billie Holiday

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Billie Holiday (short biography)

Among the female voices of jazz, that of Billie Holiday (April 7, 1915, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States – July 17, 1959, New York, United States), constitutes a unique case due to the chance of her life as told by her herself in her famous autobiography titled: “Lady Sings The Blues.” In it, Billie Holiday tells what her life was like from childhood: rape, accusations of prostitution, reform schools, alcohol, drugs, racism, drug trafficking charges, prison, disqualification from singing and, finally, death.

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Eleanora Fagan, her real name, grew up in the black ghetto of Baltimore and her father, Clarence Holiday, played guitar and banjo in Fletcher Henderson’s band. She became interested in music at the age of ten, influenced by Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong, when she listened to both of them on the gramophone at home. In 1930, traveling through Harlem in search of work, she entered a small club called “Pod’s and Jerry’s” located on 133rd Street, offering herself as a dancer. The result of the test is a disaster and at the pianist’s request he dares to sing. When he sings “Trav’lin All Alone”, the conversations in the bar stop and everything begins there.

In 1933, John Hammond, a music producer, went to hear her sing at the “Log Cabin” club and, amazed, spoke with Benny Goodman who, on November 27 of that year, opened the doors of a recording studio for him for life. With Goodman, he stayed for a short time and began to sing in more important clubs. She performs at the famous “Apollo Theater” and is hired by Joe Glaser, Louis Armstrong’s manager.

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In 1935 he appeared singing with Duke Ellington’s orchestra in the film “Symphony in Black” and began a long and fruitful musical relationship with pianist Teddy Wilson on the Columbia label. With Wilson she recorded nearly a hundred songs and the great soloists of the time played with her: Ben Webster, Johnny Hodges, Bunny Berigan, Roy Eldridge and, above all, Lester Young, with whom she would achieve a creative symbiosis of which few are found. examples in the history of jazz.

He also sang in Count Basie’s orchestra in 1937 and in 1938 with Artie Shaw, but the world of big orchestras was not his and his experiences as a big band vocalist between 1936 and 1938 did not leave him with great memories. Holiday became a star on the New York club scene in the early 1940s, and secured a long-term contract at the famous Greenwich Village club, Café Society, run by the Jew, Barney Josephson. , anti-racist and clearly progressive ideas. Billie was only twenty-four years old and was already a cult singer among her followers.

In 1943, he won for the first time the critics poll organized by “Esquire” magazine ahead of Mildred Bailey and Ella Fitzgerald and the following year he recorded for the small but select Commodore label, a series of magnificent songs among which stands out his emblematic “Strange Fruit” a devastating anti-racist plea and the wonderful “Fine and Mellow” a beautiful blues. In 1945, she married trumpeter Joe Guy, also a heroin addict, and in August of that year, she recorded the reference version of the song “Don’t Explain,” one of her most beautiful songs. 1946 saw her participate in a concert at the New York Town Hall theater and appear in a film with Louis Armstrong, titled, “New Orleans”, playing the role of a maid.

However, the story of his life goes downhill from 1950 onwards. He sang in Chicago with Miles Davis and reunited with Lester Young in Philadelphia. Norman Granz signed her to his record label and also included her in the JATP tours and in 1953, she traveled to Europe for the first time. Upon his return, he voluntarily entered a clinic to try to rebuild his life and had a short-lived recovery that he took advantage of to reappear in a television episode dedicated to the “Seven Arts” on CBS entitled “The Sound of Jazz.” The memorable and shocking “Fine and Mellow” that she sang accompanied by Lester Young can be considered a milestone in the history of jazz.

The 1958 album, “Lady in Satin,” found the 43-year-old artist struggling to sing like she did in the best of times, and she passed away the following year. Four months earlier, his admired Lester Young had done it. His death seemed a cruel mockery of fate; Dying and unconscious in the hospital bed, the police tried to handcuff her, accused of using heroin while she was dying.

Billie Holiday – The Best Of Classics Masters – Fantastic Vocal Jazz Music of Our History

Tracklist:

00:00 Me, Myself And I (1937) (Irving Gordon, Allan Roberts, Alvin S. Kaufman) 02:33 Nice Work If You Can Get It (1937) (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) 05:39 Summertime (1936) (George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward) 08:31 A Fine Romance (1936) (Jerome Kern, Dorothy Fields) 11:21 Moanin’ Low (1937) (Ralph Rainger, Howard Dietz) 14:22 God Bless The Child (1941) (Billie Holiday, Arthur Herzog, Jr.) 17:16 My Man (1938) (Jacques Charles, Channing Pollock, Albert Willemetz, Maurice Yvain) 20:15 Easy Living (1937) (Ralph Rainger, Leo Robin)

23:16 That’s Life I Guess (1936) (Peter DeRose, Sam M. Lewis) 26:23 Billie’s Blues aka I Love My Man (1936) (Billie Holiday) 29:00 These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You) (1936) (Eric Maschwitz, Jack Strachey) 32:16 Pennies From Heaven (1937) (Arthur Johnston, Johnny Burke) 35:20 I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm (1937) (Irving Berlin) 38:24 They Can’t Take That Away From Me (1937) (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) 41:24 Don’t Explain (1944) (Billie Holiday, Arthur Herzog Jr.)

44:43 I’m A Fool To Want You (1958) (Frank Sinatra, Jack Wolf, and Joel Herron) 48:04 I’ll Be Around (1958) (Alec Wilder) 51:24 It’s Easy to Remember (1958) (Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers) 55:21 Glad to Be Unhappy (1958) (Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers) 59:26 For All We Know (1958) (J. Fred Coots, Sam M. Lewis)

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