Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday in film “New Orleans”, 1947.
(Source: billiesbluesday)
Billie Holiday
What is it that’s so lasting about Billie and her sound? What keeps her so near and dear?
Three singular aspects come immediately to mind. She is intimacy and isolation in a twin orbit, singing as if to everyone while sighing only to herself. She innocently pulls and plays with time as if it were salt-water taffy, starting her lines waaay behind the beat, imbuing her performance with that heavy eye-lid feel. She evokes a brooding sense of loneliness that became her currency alone. No one in her day—or since—seems to express that one emotion as effectively or universally. Even her most joyful and upbeat tunes (“What a Little Moonlight Can Do,” “I’ll Get By”) seduce with what one jazz musician likes to call “the beauty of the sadness.”
Ashley Kahn
Liner notes, The Ultimate Collection (2005)
(Source: independentassortment)
All of Me
Billie Holiday
Can’t you see, I’m no good without you
Apparently, this has something to do with Glee,
but it just makes me think Billie Holiday vs. Ella Fitzgerald..
(Source: fiercelyliterate, via jellyfishheart)
