 | ::: JAZZ ::: |  |
Ragtime [ ]
Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, Willie The Lion Smith
New Orleans []
Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Kid Ory
New Orleans - Chicago []
Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Kid Ory
Swing []
Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Art Tatum, Coleman Hawkins, Fats Waller, Benny Carter, Lester Young, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Christian, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald
Bebop []
Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke, Charlie Christian, Sarah Vaughan
Cool []
Miles Davis, John Lewis, Tadd Dameron, Lester Young, Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz
Hardbop []
Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Max Roach, Clifford Brown, Philly Joe Jones, Roy Haynes, Charles Mingus, Wes Montgomery, Sonny Rollins
Free []
Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Eric Dolphy, Cecil Taylor, John Coltrane, Bill Dixon
Jazz electric fusion []
Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, Jaco Pastorius, Al DiMeola, Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Joe Farrell, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, John Mclaughlin
AACM []
Mainstream []
Scott Hamilton, Warren Vache, Darren Barrett, Howard Alden, Ken Peplowski
World Music []
|  |
| | ::: BILLIE HOLIDAY ::: | |  [7-4-1915 - 17-7-1959]
American singer.
Born in Baltimore, she doesn't have a very happy childhood. Her father, guitar player in the Fletcher Henderson orchestra, leaves the house when she is still young, and she is brought up by her mother, and left to herself most of the times. In 1928, she goes to New York to meet up with her mother, who had left before to look for a job. In New York, she soon starts to sing in the small clubs of Harlem to earn her living. It is in one of those clubs that the producer John Hammond discovers her one night. She records a few titles with Benny Goodman and it is the beginning of her career.
Two years later, shes sings in the band of Teddy Wilson.
In 1937, she starts recording with Lester Young [and they become really close friends. He will give her the Lady Day name, and she will call him Prez] and Buck Clayton. The same year, she also sings with the Count Basie Orchestra.
The following year, she works in the orchestra of Artie Shaw, but suffers from the segregation and racism, especially on tours in the south of the States, but also in New York. She leaves the orchestra and starts working at the Cafe Society in Greenwich Village. She records under her name the very contreversed song "Strange Fruit".
In 1946, she plays the role of a waitress in the movie "New Orleans", also starring Louis Armstrong.
She pursues her career and records many titles, but she starts taking drugs, and spend most of the year 1947 in jail.
From 1950, despite her recordings with the greatests, because of her personal problems and drug problems, she starts to go down and to loose her voice.
In 1954, she participates to the first Newport Festival, with Lester Young, Gerry Mulligan, Jo Jones...
She publishes her autobiography "Lady Sings the Blues".
In May 1959, she does her last public performance at the Phoenix Theatre in New York City.
On May 31st, she is urgently taken to the hospital, where she is harassed and arrested by the police. She dies not long afterwards.
Her unique voice and style communicates her sensitivity and suffering, especially because of the racism and the intolerance of the times... She was a very very great singer.
 | The Commodore Master Takes
BILLIE HOLIDAY
- 2000 |  | The Complete American Decca Recording
BILLIE HOLIDAY
GRP - |  | Lady in Satin
BILLIE HOLIDAY
Columbia - |  | The Ladies sing the Blues
BILLIE HOLIDAY, BESSIE SMITH ...
- 1988 |  | Wishing on the Moon; The Life and Times of Billie Holiday
BILLIE HOLIDAY
- | | BOOKS |  | Lady sings the Blues
BILLIE HOLIDAY
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