100 years of Billie Holiday

The Jazz master, Billie Holiday, rightfully nicknamed Lady Day in reference to Holy Mary, would have turned 100 this month.

Her parents were not prepared to welcome her on April 7, 1915 in Baltimore, as they were only teenagers. The singer addresses this in her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues.

This was a prelude to a tough life beginning in poverty and racism. The young lady will turn this pain into a rebellion that she will express in 1939 into a rough and poetic pamphlet, Strange Fruit, in which she mentions, through the words of a young teacher, the lynching of Afro-Americans.

During her childhood, the young lady left alone by her father, and her mother giving in prostitution, will be faced with rape, violence, prostitution, and ends up several times in reform school and jail. She finds comfort and peace in Music and starts singing in Harlem, New York, after being released from jail and living on rare tips.

A miracle happens when John Hammond, Columbia's head, hears her randomly singing in a Club and falls in love with her bewitching voice. He offers her a unique opportunity to record in Columbia's studios with the Clarinet player Benny Goodman. She's then hired at the Apollo Theater and gets to know Duke Ellington who offers her to star in a short-film.

She will then record 2 tracks that will soon become highly popular in the USA: What a Little Moonlight Can Do and Miss Brown to You. Yet, that's nothing compared to the success of Strange Fruit, which will definitely settle her commitment. She continues with Gloomy Sunday, a track that's as tragic as the previous one: the original version (Hungarian) is supposed to be cursed and would push the singer to commit suicide.

As she becomes a major figure on the Jazz scene, singing with the most famous names (Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Carter, Louis Armstrong or Count Basie) and achieves great success (Lover Man, Billie’s Blues, Don’t Explain, Lady In Satin…), she also gives in mischief and drug addiction. Exhausted by this lifestyle, and a weakened voice, she also has to battle cirrhosis of the liver.

Yet, serious kidney and lungs issues will consume her energy, and she passes away at only 44, leaving an unprecedented heritage, and influencing music forever, including a generation of singers from Frank Sinatra to Nina Simone.

Published on: April 6, 2015