UPDATE: This post was re-uploaded Winter Solstice 2014. Enjoy, NØ
Reuploaded again 03/20/2026
I’ve never been much of a couch potato. Never really got strung out on the stuff the Church of the Cathode Ray Tube peddled as the opiate of the ‘new masses’. Recently did away with cable TV altogether following the Media Domination of so-called 'REALITY’ programming. Just couldn’t see the point of paying money I can scarce afford for mass quantities of somebody else’s reality. Since I strive in all else I do to escape self-same reality, it seemed kinda counter-productive. Switched instead to Netflix new system that allows me to instantly watch movies & TV episodes online on my computer or streamed instantly from Netflix over the Internet right to my TV via a Netflix ready device.
Now whenever I have a few moments with nothing to do but absorb some mindless input, I can flip on the tube & there’s Theo Kojak, Carl Kolchak, Dr. Who (yes, Tom Baker) anytime I want. Way kool.
Lately been mostly watching Ken Burns great documentary series, Jazz. It’s been absolutely fantastic. I remembering watching parts of it when it was aired on PBS some years back, but to be forced to week after week free up the same time slot is always too much for my kinetic sporadic life. I’ve never been good with any ‘mini-series’ type event. Shit, it took me years to finally see all the Twin Peaks episodes & that’s David Lynch, for Satan’s sake. So I missed a fair share of the Jazz series the first time around. This new ‘on-demand’ way of viewing is perfect for me. I can watch, enjoy, & absorb at my own pace.
All this in way of preface to this great slab of musick history, inspired by Ken Burns & Lester Young (who gave young Billie her ‘Lady Day’ sobriquet). This material was recorded in 1951 in Boston at Storyville, a night club owned by George Wein (the man behind the Newport Jazz Festival). The recording was discovered after more than a decade (& after Billie’s untimely death in 1959) & finally released in 1964 by Recording Industries Corporation on their Posterity Series (RIC...not just a recording...an experience). Not only was this a newly discovered unreleased recording, but it was also one of the relatively few occasions when Billie Holiday was recorded “live” during an actual set at a club.
Nat Hentoff writes: “One of the Holiday myths, as perpetuated by some critics, is that Billie had declined as an artist by the 1950s. It is true that her range (never more than about one octave - NØ) had narrowed & that there were nights when the texture of her voice was bruised & torn as her spirit sometimes became. But the essence of Billie Holiday’s nonpariel skill & the power of her impact never came primarily from only technical expertise. Far more than any jazz singer of her time (or any time - NØ), Billie’s strength was in her capacity to so deeply personalize the songs she sang that the very act of performing was a fragment of autobiography.”
One of the wonderful things about this recording is the variety here, the range of mood & style encompassed by these songs. The bitter anger of “Strange Fruit”, the resilient toughness of “Billie’s Blues”, the sensuality of “Miss Brown to You”, the rueful memories of “Lover Man” are all represented here & given that otherworldly touch of the great Ms. Holiday. She gave musick a universality that is unequaled, in the history of jazz or any other musickal genre. She was & is simply the best.
& remember, though you may know these songs from other sources, you heard this great recording here first.