Billie Holiday
Portrait of singer Billie Holiday. Printed on back: "Billie Holiday. Billie Holiday, Lady Day, was born April 7, 1915, Aries and died 44 years later in 1959. She was original, like no one else before her. Billie was the jazz singer par excellence because of her singular sound based on the timbre of her voice, her phrasing, inflection, rhythmic sense and her intuitive knowledge of harmony. Her spiritual parents were Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong and she in turn influenced the sound of jazz because many singers and instrumentalists tried to imitate her particular style and musical quality. The most incredible and and the most valued musical combination for jazz afficionados is Billie singing and Lester Young playing the tenor saxophone with her and behind her. It is the blues 'call and response' pattern carried to its most sophisticated extreme. Lady Day sings and Pres responds in an exchange of understanding and feeling demonstrating the best example of two jazz instrumentalists supporting each other on record. Lady Day is best know for songs like Strange Fruit, God Bless the Child, Fine and Mellow, Lover Man and Gloomy Sunday, some of which she composed, but there is another side of her that is joyous, exuberant, bouncy and up-beat in feeling. The songs of late 1930's like Them There Eyes and Without Your Love have an imperishable freshness and charm. Photo courtesy of Molly Major. Stride Card Company, 115 W. 16 St., N.Y., 1001. 5004."
- Resource ID:
- hk000022
- Subject:
- Holiday, Billie, 1915-1959
- African American women singers
- Photographic prints
- Publisher:
- Stride Card Company
- Date:
- unknown
- Format:
- 1 photographic print ; 7 x 5.25 in.
- Department:
- E. Azalia Hackley Collection
- Location:
- Biography--Holiday, Billie
- Copyright:
- Physical rights are retained by DPL. Copyright is retained in accordance with U.S. copyright laws.