Details
Track Listing
1. Lover, Come Back to Me
2. Good Morning, Heartache
3. Body and Soul
4. I Can't Face the Music
5. Solitude
6. I Cried For You
7. My Man
8. I Must Have That Man
9. He's Funny That Way
10. Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone
11. Don't Explain
12. Strange Fruit
13. God Bless the Child
14. Some Other Spring
15. Fine and Mellow
16. Lady Sings the Blues
Album Notes
ULTIMATE BILLIE HOLIDAY is also available with Nina Simone's ULTIMATE NINA SIMONE and Ella Fitzgerald's ULTIMATE ELLA FITZGERALD in the 3-CD box set ULTIMATE DIVAS (Verve 557 595).
Tracks selected by Shirley Horn.
Personnel includes: Billie Holiday (vocals); Willie Smith, Benny Carter (alto saxophone); Paul Quinichette, Wardell Gray, Coleman Hawkins, Al Cohn (tenor saxophone); Joe Newman, Charlie Shavers, Howard McGhee, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Roy Eldridge, Buck Clayton (trumpet); Tony Scott (clarinet); Oscar Peterson, Wynton Kelly, Carl Drinkard, Jimmie Rowles (piano); Freddie Green, Kenny Burrell, Barney Kessel (guitar); Ray Brown, Aaron Bell, Charles Mingus, Red Mitchell, John Simmons, Carson Smith (bass); Gus Johnson, Lennie McBrowne, Davie Coleman, Alvin Stoller, Elaine Leighton, Larry Bunker, Chico Hamilton (drums).
Producer: Norman Granz.
Compilation producer: Richard Seidel.
Recorded between 1945 and 1956. Includes liner notes by Shirley Horn and Will Friedwald.
This is part of The Ultimate Verve Series.
There are many available collections of the music of Billie Holiday, one of the most influential singers America has ever produced. (She's up there with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and Nat "King" Cole in terms of impact on popular and jazz singing.) But this compilation of Holiday's '50s tracks has an edge: these songs were selected by Holiday disciple Shirley Horn. So these songs are a best-of as chosen by a Holiday-influenced jazz singer, not someone from a marketing department. Many of the tracts here are lesser-known gems, ones that Horn feels are exceptional examples of Holiday's art. (Sinatra himself points to her as a major influence.) Her voice is dusky and smoky, at turns as delicate as any instrument. The backing bands include such jazz giants as Charles Mingus, Oscar Peterson, Tony Scott, and Benny Carter, yet Holiday is the center of attention, as befits her talent for making a song her own.
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