Billie Holiday - 1957 Songs for Distingué Lovers This 1957 recording is a performance of heightened expression, with Billie Holiday able to shift the mood and meaning of these very familiar songs with the slightest inflection of pitch and time, her phrasing the equal of any great jazz instrumentalist. Her slight alterations to the melody of "Stars Fell on Alabama" suggest more complex texts of song swimming just below the lyric. The tunes feature solos by Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster, and Barney Kessel. Throughout are highlights of shared creativity, while "They Can't Take That Away from Me" is a masterpiece of late swing. Stuart Broomer As the back of the newly-remastered SONGS FOR DISTINGUE LOVERS appropriately points out, Billie Holiday's voice did change in her later years. It was much lower & richer in texture, but it was one coming from a life's worth of experience that left Billie both scarred yet still resonant as ever. While the subsequent 1959's LADY IN SATIN would make it all too clear that Billie was nearing the end, 1957's SONGS FOR DISTINGUE LOVERS indicates very little of her short time left & thus creates a masterpiece on the level of SATIN. The original album only contained 6 songs, kind of skimpy even for 1957, but those 6 songs were all longer than 4 minutes, so time constraints probably were the reason for that. Thanks to Verve Records' extensive reissue campaign, DISTINGUE is stretched out to 12 songs with 6 other songs cherry-picked from other albums. Naturally, old standards & Great American Songbook entries are the order of the day, but Billie proves even the best-worn songs are ripe for a reinvention & on DISTINGUE, she does an excellent job as always. Definitely the most represented songwriters on the album are George & Ira Gershwin & their always sophisticated tunes are rendered even more so thanks to Billie's gently-nuanced delivery. Only "A Foggy Day" was on the original album, while "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off" (taken at a brisk, very jazz-like tempo) & "They Can't Take That Away From Me" (probably the Gershwins' most sophisticated song) appeared on BODY & SOUL. "Love Is Here To Stay" was first found on ALL OR NOTHING AT ALL. With the Gershwins having been the epitome of class & elegance, their material goes hand in hand with Miss Holiday, who always exuded those qualities even during the darkest hours of her life. Cole Porter's "Just One Of Those Things" (an original album entry) is given a new lease on life thanks to Billie, proving no matter how many times a song has been done by as many artists, Billie makes it sound like it's being sung for the very first time. Rodgers & Hart's "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" (on the original) is given a very torch-song-based delivery, hinting at the just-plain-downhearted atmosphere of LADY IN SATIN. Johnny Mercer's (who also did a fair amount of recording on his own, making him one of the first singer-songwriters) "Day In, Day Out" & "One For My Baby [And One More For The Road]" (all on the original album) are given epic arrangements that are often longer than Billie's vocals, but the music is so accessible & warm, they allow you to just let it run. Other songs are written by people not as famous on a level as the previously-mentiond writers, but perhaps the songs themselves are well-known anyway. "Stars Fell On Alabama" (original album), "I Wished On The Moon" (on ALL OR NOTHING AT ALL & co-written by playwright Dorothy Parker), "Body & Soul" (on the album of the same name) & Moonlight In Vermont" (also on BODY & SOUL and probably well-known thanks to its constant cover versions) show the equal footing on which Billie & her band are making them stars on the same bill. By the time Billie Holiday made SONGS FOR DISTINGUE LOVERS in 1957, she was 42 years old, but had lived quite a lot in that relatively short amount of time. Because her voice was still in pretty good shape at this time, how it almost deteriorated by the time of LADY IN SATIN was definitely a shocker. Those who care to dive into Billie's later work may want to try SONGS FOR DISTINGUE LOVERS on for size before being brave enough to go for LADY IN SATIN (I did the opposite, to tell you the truth). Nevertheless, if you want music that's "distingue" all over (the music, the lyrics, the vocals, the songwriters), look no further than this. Eric N Andrews During the six days and four sessions covered by this 1997 CD (which in its original form consisted of six songs), Billie Holiday recorded 18 titles; a dozen of the best are here, although "Comes Love" is unaccountably missing. This were the last series of extensive small-group recordings that Lady Day would make in the studios. Although her voice was largely shot at this point, she puts so much feeling into some of the lyrics that one can often overlook her dark sound. The all-star band (trumpeter Harry "Sweets" Edison, tenor saxophonist Ben Webster, pianist Jimmie Rowles, guitarist Barney Kessel, bassist Red Mitchell, and Alvin Stoller or Larry Bunker on drums) is a major asset, and there are plenty of short solos for Edison, Webster and Kessel. Holiday does her best on such numbers as "A Foggy Day," "One for My Baby," "Just One of Those Things" and "I Wished on the Moon," and there are plenty of haunting moments, even if one could tell (even at the time) that the end was probably drawing near for the singer. The music is still well worth having, although completists will prefer a collection with all 18 songs, while beginners should sample Holiday's Columbia and Decca output first. ~ Scott Yanow Comprised of the last five studio dates Holiday did for Verve, SONGS FOR DISTINGUE LOVERS finds Lady Day operating within her ideal environment; that of a small jazz combo. Accompanied by a legendary line-up including Sweets Edison, Ben Webster and Barney Kessel, Holiday sang with the clear enunciation and easy swing that had become her trademark. Wrapping her phrasing around standards by Rodgers & Hart, The Gershwins and Cole Porter, Billie Holiday demonstrated how years of singing with various jazz bands sharpened her ability to turn a song on its head through slight fluctuations in pitch and tone color. 01 Day In, Day Out (Herndon, Mercer, Bloom) 6:47 02 A Foggy Day (G. & I. Gershwin) 4:40 03 Stars Fell On Alabama (Perkins, Parish) 4:28 04 One For My Baby (And One For The Road) (Arlen , Mercer) 5:39 05 Just One Of Those Things (Porter) 5:31 06 I Didn't Know What Time It Was (Rodgers, Hart) 5:59 07 Let's Call The Whole Thing Off (G. & I. Gershwin) 3:23 08 I Wished On The Moon (Parker , Rainger) 3:25 09 They Can't Take That Away From Me (G. & I. Gershwin) 4:10 10 Body And Soul (Heyman , Eyton , Green* , Sour) 6:22 11 Moonlight In Vermont (Blackburn, Suessdorf) 3:49 12 Love Is Here To Stay (G. & I. Gershwin) 3:41 Recorded 1957 at Capitol Studios, Hollywood: tracks 2, 8, and 11 on January 3; tracks 5 and 6 on January 4; tracks 1 and 10 on January 7; tracks 3, 4, and 12 on January 8; and tracks 7 and 9 on January 9 Tracks 1-6 original LP issue: Songs For Distingué Lovers Verve MGV 8257 Tracks 7, 9, 10, 11 original LP issue: Body And Soul Verve MGV 8197 Tracks 8 and 12 original LP issue: All or Nothing at All Verve MGV 8329 Billie Holiday (vocals) Barney Kessel (guitar) Ben Webster (tenor saxophone) Harry "Sweets" Edison (trumpet) Jimmy Rowles (piano) Red Mitchell (bass) Joe Mondragon (bass) Larry Bunker (drums) Alvin Stoller (drums)
suhacz