Classic Ballads

Track Listings

1. Bye Bye Blackbird

2. Old Folks

3. Circle

4. Stella by Starlight

5. I Thought About You

6. Fall

7. All of You

8. Blue in Green

Classic Ballads,Miles Davis,Platinum Disc,Cool,Modal Music,Pop,R&B,Soul/R & B

Classic Ballads

Tracks:

I've Got The World On A String
I Get A Kick Out Of You
They Can't Take That Away From Me
My Funny Valentine
Young At Heart
Someone To Watch Over Me
In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning
I've Got You Under My Skin
You Make Me Feel So Young
It Happened in Monterey
Oh! Look At Me Now
Night And Day
Witchcraft
The Lady Is A Tramp
All The Way
Come Fly With Me
Put Your Dreams Away
One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)
Come Dance With Me
Nice 'N' Easy

Amazon.com

Few would dispute that Frank Sinatra was one of the greatest popular singers of the 20th century. His voice had distinct power and majesty, whether he was belting out a swinging dance number or softly crooning a tender ballad. When he was at his height, no one could touch him, and the songs collected on Classic Sinatra showcase the range of his talent. Recorded during his memorable run for Capitol Records in the 1950s, the songs here are more than just his best, they're often the definitive recordings: "I Get a Kick out of You," "Young at Heart," "Witchcraft," "The Lady Is a Tramp," "In the Wee Small Hours," and "I've Got You Under My Skin." Like almost everything Sinatra recorded during this period, there isn't a dud to be found, which makes Classic Sinatra a perfect introduction to the work of this truly great talent. --Robert Burrow

Amazon.com

Franks Sinatra Photos

More from Ole Blue Eyes

Romance: Songs From the Heart
No One Cares
Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely

The Capitol Years
A Swingin' Affair
Come Dance with Me!

Customer Reviews:

The ultimate lullaby cd.......2007-08-04

I was having a hard time staying up with my daughter when she woke up at 3am. We were using Baby Einstein and classical and I couldn't stay awake. I needed something to sing along to. This was PERFECT. It was mellow enough to use while she was going to sleep, but I could sing along too. With the second baby on the way, we're looking for something different, but along the same lines.

Great Sinatra sound........2007-07-09

This CD has many classic Sinatra songs just as reflected by its name. Great CD for easy listening.

An Ideal Single Disc Collection Of Sinatra's Peak Years........2007-05-03

Though nowhere near as concise as the three disc "The Capitol Years" boxed set, "Classic Sinatra" is a most excellent collection of the most popular tunes from Ol' Blue Eyes' most artistically successful period.

Boasting 20 timeless recordings written by such musical geniuses such as Cole Porter, The Gershwin Brothers, Harold Arlen, Cahn and Van Huesen and Johnny Mercer, "Classic Sinatra" is a hard deal to beat. Every song here is a masterpiece, from the boastful swagger of "I've Got The World On A String" to the bouncy joy of "You Make Me Feel So Young" to the tearjerking ache of "One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)", each track is among the finest recordings in music history.

In addition to all these wonderful songs, the remastering job on this cd is absolutely wonderful, as these songs all sound better than they ever have. Plus you get wonderful packaging and liner notes. Overall, this cd is a great starting course for Frank fans.

Like a 45rpm disc.......2007-03-23

Should have been remastered but at that price I enjoyed crooning to my favorite lyrics.

My introduction into the world of Frank Sinatra........2007-01-23

My dad bought me this CD as a gift years ago. I didn't care for Frank at the time, but as I listened to this CD, I grew to love the music of Frank Sinatra. The time period this CD covers is during his years at Capitol Records, which is still my favorite label that he worked under. This CD is great - a lot of Sinatra classics when the man's voice was at his best. Fresh, chipper, and sharp. This is an excellent CD for someone who is new to Frank. I own the 4-CD disc set from his Capitol years as well, but this is a great little disc all on it's own.

Average customer rating:

Love Letters from Ella
Ella Fitzgerald
Manufacturer: Concord Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Similar Items:

We All Love Ella: Celebrating the First Lady of Song
Lullabies of Birdland
Sweet and Hot
Destination Moon
Love, Ella

ASIN: B000QUU2HU
Release Date: 2007-07-31

Tracks:

Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone
Cry Me a River
You Turned the Tables On Me
I've Got the World On a String
Witchcraft
My Old Flame
The One I Love (Belongs To Somebody Else)
Take Love Easy
Our Love Is Here To Stay
Some Other Spring

Amazon.com

You knew a trend was brewing when Concord Records scored a hit by taking newly unearthed vocal tracks from the 1970s by the late Ray Charles and adding newly recorded accompaniment by the orchestra still bearing the late Count Basie's name. Here Concord repeats the formula, doctoring outtakes by the dearly departed Ella Fitzgerald with new backing by the London Philharmonic and/or a contemporary rhythm section. As with Ray Sings, Basie Swings, Love Letters from Ella has undeniable appeal. Recorded in the 1970s, the great singer is in fine, relaxed, late-season form on a collection of ballads including "My Old Flame" and "Cry Me a River" and medium tempo tunes including "Withcraft" and "Our Love is Here to Stay." (There is also a pair of unaltered, previously unreleased performances by Ella and Basie and band and a 1983 track teaming her with Andre Previn.) The new orchestrations by Jorge Calandrelli are tasteful, and the edits are clean. But if you're going to play these archival games, you owe it to listeners to spell out what was done and why in greater track-by-track detail than is done here. Exactly what old accompaniment did the new accompaniment replace? Did a duet with guitarist Joe Pass really need to be "updated" with a rhythm section? When record companies start thinking these things don't matter, jazz is in even bigger trouble than we thought. --Lloyd Sachs

Average customer rating:

Absolutely the best of Billie Holiday
Lady Day: The Best of Billie Holiday
The tragedy of a lonely woman!
Billie's Best - Accept No Substitutes
A serious and great artist's best work, you need these sides

Lady Day: The Best of Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Manufacturer: Sony
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Pure Ella: The Very Best of Ella Fitzgerald
The Hot Fives & Sevens
Complete Jazz at Massey Hall
Never No Lament: The Blanton-Webster Band
The Ultimate Collection

ASIN: B00005Q45Y
Release Date: 2001-10-02

Tracks:

What A Little Moonlight Can Do - Billie Holiday
These Foolish Things - Billie Holiday
I Cried For You - Billie Holiday
Summertime - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
Billie's Blues - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
If You Were Mine - Billie Holiday
A Fine Romance - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
Easy To Love - Billie Holiday
I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
I Must Have That Man - Billie Holiday
Me, Myself And I - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
They Can't Take Away From Me - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
Easy Living - Billie Holiday
A Sailboat In The Moonlight - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
Travelin' All Alone - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
When A Woman Loves A Man - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
You Go To My Head - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
My Man - Billie Holiday

Tracks:

I Can't Believe That You're In Love With Me - Billie Holiday
The Very Thought Of You - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
I Can't Get Started - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
Long Gone Blues - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
Sugar - Billie Holiday
Some Other Spring - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
Them There Eyes - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
The Man I Love - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
Body And Soul - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
Swing, Brothers, Swing - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
Night And Day - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
Let's Do It - Billie Holiday
God Bless The Child - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
Solitude - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
I Cover The Waterfront - Billie Holiday
Gloomy Sunday - Billie Holiday
Until The Real Thing Comes Along - Billie Holiday
All Of Me - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra

Album Description

Lady Day: The Best Of Billie Holiday is an ideal introduction to the Voice of Jazz in all its enduring glory. This incomparable collection draws on the 10-CD boxed set Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia (1933-1944) (CXK 85470), representing not only her finest work, but American jazz and pop singing at its zenith. Accompanied sublimely by a Who's Who of the Swing Era (including her soulmate Lester Young, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Buck Clayton, Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster, Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney, Jo Jones, and pianist-arranger Teddy Wilson, who was often at the helm when Holiday entered the studio), Billie Holiday masterfully renders a host of mostly-classic pop tunes. Fans are drawn to her musical triumphs and personal tragedies. She is a mysterious icon in the same vein as Miles Davis. Columbia possesses the first and finest recordings of her entire career! This material has never sounded clearer and more intimate!

Customer Reviews:

Absolutely the best of Billie Holiday.......2007-02-24

Anybody who likes Billie Holiday even part time needs this CD. Even great for those people who only know a few songs just by chance. Love the CD. Even got another as a gift for a friend.

Lady Day: The Best of Billie Holiday.......2007-01-10

Bought this for my granddaughter. She's a Billie Holiday fan. She loved the CD.

The tragedy of a lonely woman!.......2006-11-21

The stature of this emblematic singer of the jazz is absolutely undeniable. Her powerful, sensitive and expressive voice made of her, one of the most tragic icons in the jazz. She sung as she lived. In this sense she reminds too much to the legendary Edith Piaff in the other side of the Atlantic.

What else might I add for cataloguing this cult artist that it has not been said just before? She is part of the history jazz and her memory will transcend and surmount the next years to come.

Billie's Best - Accept No Substitutes.......2006-06-12

Billie Holiday is the quintessential jazz singer; despite a limited vocal range she set the standard by which all others are measured. It's all about the quality of her voice, the lush tone, and her marvelously idiosyncratic phrasing. Though her career was short and troubled, she recorded a lot, which means novice collectors must avoid innumerable bear traps. In general, her later work should be ignored, by then she was wearing her emotional problems like an ugly hat, despair manifested itself in performances so lackluster they're depressing at best, frequently downright tragic.

For the best of Billie you need to go back to the glory days, 1933-1944, precisely the time period covered by this reasonably priced and beautifully produced 2-CD set. (If you're a player with money to burn go for the 10-CD comprehensive retrospective, The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia, 1933-1944.) All the songs providing the foundation of her reputation are here, as well as many pleasant surprises. The booklet, though not lavish, provides photos, background, and a complete list of personnel for each track. This detail is significant because the players on these selections, in addition to being the finest who ever backed Ms. Holiday, were also the absolute elite of their generation, each worthy of individual exploration. (Names like Lester Young, Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster, Johnny Hodges, and Teddy Wilson enjoy legendary status.)

Perhaps most amazing is the sound quality, considering the recordings are WWII vintage they're clear and smooth. About Ms. Holiday's personal life, the less said the better. What is remarkable is that, despite her personal troubles, she managed to create a canon of work that is truly timeless, just as sweet and powerful today as it was then. Not only is this the best Billie Holiday anthology available, it makes a formidable addition any jazz collection. (Dig that cover photo, wow!)

A serious and great artist's best work, you need these sides.......2005-03-11

If there were some way to award music 200 stars, I am sure all of us would have done so for this set!

Like others here, I have it all, but I think her work from the 30s and early 1940s from Columbia and its ancestors is not just her greatest works, but among the great works of world musical culture. Everyone with a set of ears should be more or less required to have this music and enjoy it.

Strange Fruit was not recorded for Columbia but for the Indy label Commodore. Thus, you will not find it on this or any of the Columbia collections like this that capture her work in the period BEFORE Strange Fruit. It was recorded in the 1940s, whereas this collection contains work from Billie in the 1930s and perhaps 1940 and 1941. No doubt Sony wishes it had the rights to that side and everything else Commodore recorded, but they don't.

The truth is, Strange Fruit is not one of Billie's Greatest works. There are about 15 tunes on this CD that have better singing, better musicians backing her, and were more important pieces of Billie's work. Strange Fruit is well known to the people who know about Billie as a person, but don't know much about Billie as a Jazz musician. Her recording, while powerful, was not very nuanced, not very jazzy, and not as good as much of the work here. Indeed, the weakness of her mid-1940s Commodore work as opposed to these recordings is that Billie was persuaded to move away from Jazz and swing to attempt to become a cabarat chanteuse of "serious" songs, a move that some also relate to the inception of heroin and the decline of her voice, a move that brought about a decline in her art.

If you want to hear a better version of "Strange Fruit," listen to Josh White's recording which is so much more powerful, if not as well known. I am not downing the song or its politics, far from it, but Billie's Strange Fruit is more important as a political statement than as a work of Jazz art.

One of the greatest things about these records are the many master musicians of swing and jazz that join her on these recordings. Very shortly after she started recording, the greatest names in Jazz would flock to her sessions and play on her recordings for litte because of the innovation and creativity Billie showed as a jazz creator in her own right. These recordings were a chance for them to jam together in loose arrangements and be more innovative and creative than they were with the orchestras they played with.

These masters of Jazz viewed Billie as a serious artist of Jazz. They delighted in her knowledge of the musical aspects of swing jazz which was unique for such a young singer (she was in her twenties when these records were made) and delighted in her ability to sense what they were doing in their accompaniments and solos and to respond to them in her vocals.

Despite the exaggerated picture of her life as a prostitute that was part of the marketing of the 1950's work of ghost-written fiction called "Lady Sings the Blues," that a drug addled Billie claimed was her autobiography, Billie Holiday grew up around Jazz with her father being a big band guitar player who complained Billie hired every NY guitarist but him for these sessions. Billie's mother specialized in boarding Jazz musicians and catering parties for musicians and singers, parties where the young Billie would often help serve the food. So when she met Lester young in 1937 for these sessions, she had already known the man she named 'Prez in 1934 when he boarded with her mother while he was in the Fletcher Henderson band.

These sides contain most of the great collaboration between Lester Young and Billie. They were great musical friends and personal friends until Billie became a heroin addict, at which point Lester didn't much want to be around her.

However, as much as I am a Lester Young man to the death (his framed picture hangs in my home), too little is said of the other musicians who grace these recordings. Billie's collaboration with pianist Teddy Wilson who plays on and directed most of these recordings (many were recorded as Teddy Wilson Orchestra sides)needs to be explored. Likewise, her work with the great bassists and rhythm players on these records needs to be appreciated. My favorite sides are the ones in which she has the benefit of Basieites like her dear friend Freddy Green on guitar and the great Walter Page on bass. Likewise, Billie's musical closeness with the great Buck Clayton and his role on these sides is also underestimated.

Yet, it doesn't matter if Billie had recorded these sides with some high school band members from Winslow, Arizona. This is good music to listen to, good music to smile to, music to fall in love to, and music to dance too. Contrary to the tendency to get maudlin and milk her image as a tragedy that Holiday developed in the 1950s as her life and her musical skill declined , even the songs on these recordings with the sadest lyrics possess a great joy, swing, and spirit of the wonders of Jazz.

Average customer rating:

Spirit from 4400
Relaxing yet satisfying...
really good to listen
Buy for one song
the good songs are very good

4400

Manufacturer: Milan Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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The 4400 - The Complete Third Season
Kyle Xy
The 4400: The Official Companion Seasons 1 and 2
The 4400 - The Complete First Season
The 4400 - The Complete Second Season

ASIN: B000OCY6VI
Release Date: 2007-05-01

Tracks:

A Place In Time (Theme From The 4400) - Bosshouse
This Is Your Life - Switchfoot
Falling By The Wayside - People In Planes
Into The Fire - Thirteen Senses
Worry About You - Ivy
How Do You Say Goodbye? - Engineers
She Will Be Loved - Maroon 5
Shy Baby - Jacqueline McKenzie
Do The Buildings And Cops Make You Smile? - Bedroom Walls
Cheek To Cheek - Billie Holiday
Salvation - John Van Tongeren
A Place In Time - The Landau Orchestra

Customer Reviews:

Spirit from 4400.......2007-08-01

This soundtrack is prety good! It's Succed the feelings from TV series,. about caracters and his tales. Listen it, is revival the best episodes and will travel to another reality. Failures: the last track (A place in time version Landau Orchestra), the track 6 (Enginers.. compositors?) and overall: The principal theme,A place in time... is too short!

Relaxing yet satisfying..........2007-07-27

It was actually the soundtrack that got me interested in the show. An excellently eclectic mix of mainstream and lesser-known artists, this album is perfect for listening while reading or sitting outdoors on a nice day. It's really standalone. Few of the TV soundtracks I've heard have been enjoyable just as a compilation, and this one breaks the mold.
After watching the show, I've gained a new appreciation for the album as well because it contains all the songs from the show's most climactic moments. Both as a soundtrack and a CD it is great.

really good to listen.......2007-07-22

I like the songs and instrumental versions a lot - it is a good mix between alternative and pop/rock music. Although the main team (A Place In Time) is only about 1 minute - the reason for only 4 star-rating. I hope there will be soon a longer version.
Music on this cd is from all 3 season! Very good are also "Into the Fire", "Worry About You" and "Salvation".
If you like the music in 4400, you should have this cd.

Buy for one song.......2007-07-21

Buy this to get "A Place in Time" by Amanda Abizaid as this is the only way I've found to get it. Only complaint is that it's not long enough.

the good songs are very good.......2007-06-26

I really like this CD. The songs that are not so good (in my opinion) are still tolerable. The very good ones are just that...outstanding. I am biased because I really like the show and the music really adds to the on-screen events. I do think that you probably need to be a fan of the show to like most of the music on this CD...

Ken Burns's Jazz: The Story of American Music

Average customer rating:

A Good Selection, An Odd Accompaniment to the Documentary
Great Intro to Jazz
Ken Burn's Jazz CD
A must have..
Good starter set for jazz beginners

Ken Burns's Jazz: The Story of American Music
Various Artists
Manufacturer: Sony
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Jazz - A Film By Ken Burns
Jazz: A History of America's Music
The History of Jazz
Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: A Musical Journey
Jazz Styles: History and Analysis (9th Edition)

ASIN: B000050HVG
Release Date: 2000-11-14

Tracks:

Star Dust - Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra
Soon One Mornin' (Death Come A-Creepin' in My Room0 - Mississippi
Memphis Blues - Lieut. Jim Europe's 369th Infantry ("Hell Fighters") Band
Livery Stable Blues - The Original Dixieland Jazz Band
Charleston - James P. Johnson
Chimes Blues - King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band
Back Water Blues - Bessie Smith
The Pearls - Jelly Roll Morton
Dead Man Blues - Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers
Wild Cat Blues - Clarence Williams's Blue Five
Cake Walkin' Babies (From Home) - Clarence Williams's Blue Five
Sugar Foot Stomp - Fletcher Henderson & His Orchestra
Heebie Jeebies - Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five
Potato Head Blues - Louis Armstrong & His Hot Seven
West End Blues - Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five
The Mooche - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
East St. Louis Toodle-Oo - Duke Ellington & His Washingtonians
Black Beauty - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
Mood Indigo - The Jungle Band
There Ain't No Sweet Man (Worth The Salt Of My Tears) - Paul Whiteman & His Orchestra featuring Bix Beiderbecke
Singin' The Blues - Frankie Trumbauer & His Orchestra featuring Bix Beiderbecke
Riverboat Shuffle - Frankie Trumbauer & His Orchestra featuring Bix Beiderbecke
Hotter Than 'Ell - Fletcher Henderson & His Orchestra
I Got Rhythm - Ethel Waters

Tracks:

It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
Echoes of Harlem - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
Moten Swing - Benny Moten's Kansas City Orchestra
St. Louis blues - Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra
Ain't Misbehavin' - Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra
For Dancers Only - Jimmie Lunceford & His Orchestra
King Porter Stomp - Benny goodman & His Orchestra
Rose Room - The Benny Goodman Sextet
Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing) - Benny Goodman Sextet
Jumpin' at the Woodside - Count Basie & His Orchestra
Sent for You Yesterday and Here You Come Today - Count Basie & His Orchestra
Lester Leaps In - Count Basie's Kansas City Seven
Oh, Lady, Be Good! - Jones-Smith Incorporated
Without Your Love - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday
God Bless the Child - Billie Holiday with Eddie Heywood & His Orchestra
Three Little Words - Art Tatum
Rebecca - Pete Johnson & "Big" Joe Turner
Harlem Congo - Chick Webb & His Orchestra
A-Tisket, A-Tasket - Chick Webb & His Orchestra featuring Ella Fitzgerald
Shine - Django Reinhardt & Le Quartet du Hot Club de France
Dear Old Southland - Noble Sissle & His Orchestra

Tracks:

Body and Soul - Coleman Hawkins
Cotton Tail - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
Take the 'A' Train - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
Begin the Beguine - Artie Shaw & His Orchestra
In The Mood - Glenn Miller & His Orchestra
Well, Git It! - Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra
Solitude - Billie Holiday with Eddie Heywood & His Orchestra
Drum Boogie - Gene Krupa & His Orchestra
Salt Peanuts - Dizzy Gillespie & His All Star Quintet
Groovin' High - Dizzy Gillespie Sextet
Ko-ko - Charlie Parker's Re-Boppers
Scrapple From the Apple - Charlie Parker Quintet
Enbraceable You - Charlie Parker Quintet
Get Happy - Bud Powell Trio
Epistrophy - Thelonious Monk
Straight, No Chaser - Thelonious Monk
Manteca - Dizzy Gillespie & His Orchestra
Moon Dreams - Miles Davis Nonet
Just Friends - Charlie Parker
Rockin' Chair - Louis Armstrong
They Can't Take That Away From Me - Sarah Vaughan & Her Trio
Walkin' Shoes - Chet Baker & Gerry Mulligan
Fine and Mellow - Billie Holiday

Tracks:

Doodlin' - Horace Silver & The Jazz Messengers
I Get A Kick Out of You - Clifford Brown & Max Roach
St. Thomas - Sonny Rollins
Django - The Modern Jazz Quartet
Take Five - The Dave Brubeck Quartet
So What - Miles Davis Sextet
Giant Steps - John Coltrane
Rick Kick Shaw - Cecil Taylor Trio
Chronology - Ornette Coleman
Original Faubus Fables - Charles Mingus
Acknowledgment - John Coltrane Quartet

Tracks:

Hello, Dolly! - Louis Armstrong
Desafinado - Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd
In a Sentimental Mood - Duke Ellington & John Coltrane
Tourist Point of View - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
E.S.P. - The Miles Davis Quintet
Spanish Key (single version) - Miles Davis
Birdland - Weather Report
Mister Magic - Grover Washington, Jr
Rockit - Herbie Hancock
Un Ange en Danger - M.C. Solaar & Ron Carter
Tanya - Dexter Gordon
Soon All Will Know - Wynton Marsalis
Death Letter - Cassandra Wilson
Take The "A" Train - The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra

Amazon.com

This five-CD box set soundtrack to filmmaker Ken Burns's 10-part, 19-hour documentary Jazz spans nearly a century of jazz styles, from the martial rhythms of James Reese Europe to the soul-jazz of Grover Washington Jr. It includes time-tested classics like Benny Goodman's 1938 classic, "Sing, Sing, Sing"; John Coltrane's chanting 1965 immortal track, "A Love Supreme"; Billie Holiday's blue-ember ballad, "God Bless the Child"; and Ella Fitzgerald peeling off "A-Tisket A-Tasket." Bebop is represented by Charlie Parker's orchestral bop version of "Just Friends"; Thelonious Monk's nocturnal calling card, "'Round Midnight"; and Dizzy Gillespie's "Salt Peanuts" and "Groovin' High."

The jazz-instrumentalist-as-singer comes to life on Coleman Hawkins's "Body and Soul" and Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers' "Doodlin'." Clifford Brown and Max Roach's "I Get a Kick out of You" epitomizes the hard-bop era, while Miles Davis's "So What" stands as the modal masterpiece. The cool school is in session with Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan dishing out "Walkin' Shoes," and the Modern Jazz Quartet's soulful elegy "Django" straddles all the above musical orbits. As for Django Reinhardt, he's featured on "Shine" with the justly famed Le Quartet du Hot Club de France.

Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues" and "Potato Head Blues" and Duke Ellington's rousing rendition of Billy Strayhorn's anthem, "Take the A Train," and his moody "Solitude" show why they are the Olympian masters of this art form--and the most frequently featured artists in the series. Although Ken Burns tries bringing the music up-to-date with Wynton Marsalis, Cassandra Wilson, and two jazz-hip-hop-influenced tracks--Herbie Hancock's robotic "Rockit" and the French-language "Un Aige en Danger" by MC Solaar and bass legend Ron Carter--there are significant holes here. After Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman, the avant-garde period from the late 1960s to the 1980s is lacking. And aside from the bossa nova hit "Desafinado," Latin jazz is also missing. It's a tough task summarizing jazz in five CDs, and Burns has given us a vibrant and vivid multicolored aural portrait of the music. --Eugene Holley Jr.

Customer Reviews:

A Good Selection, An Odd Accompaniment to the Documentary.......2007-04-25

To chronicle the first six decades or so of American jazz in five CD's is an ambitious undertaking. Ken Burns pulled it off by making it the soundtrack to stories he wanted to tell. This made for heavy representation of songs from Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis easy choices. The documentary, in some ways, tells like an allegory of racism and civil rights in 20th century America, yet the soundrack includes white musicians like Chet Baker, Stan Getz, Dave Brubek and Benny Goodman in the CD selections. Brubek's inclusion is particularly notable after the documentary was so dismissive of "West Coast Jazz" - I don't even remember Take 5 being mentioned in the documentary. It would have been nice to include Bill Evans since every jazz pianist that followed him credited Evans as an influence, but his work as side man on "So What" is all we get. Herbie Hancock's Rockit is nowhere close to representative of his body of work. My main disappointment is that after Free Jazz and the like, jazz had nowhere left to go except backwards, yet the contemporary "pop" jazz at the end comes across as the latest and greatest thing yet. I respectfully disagree.

Great Intro to Jazz.......2007-03-23

For those just getting into Jazz or just need a refresher course this is a great CD. I brought it for my husband who is a big Jazz fan and he just loves it and gets alot of use out of them.

Ken Burn's Jazz CD.......2007-01-14

A great cd with many remastered original recordings of jazz greats. Each cd features a different jazz era, so one can select a jazz genre to suit one's mood.

A must have.........2007-01-05

..for any jazz fan or music history buff. LOADS of content, hours and hours of great music.

Good starter set for jazz beginners.......2006-02-22

This is a beautifully packaged 5 disc set highlighting some of the greatest jazz artists of all time. If you buy this set and are really excited about the sound and the masterful artists presented then, I highly recommend collecting the 22 discs of individual artists by Burns which showcase the popular and influential music of those artists. Having all of the Ken Burns Jazz editions is of course just a start but a good start into the world of jazz it will be.

Average customer rating:

Memories
Track titles mixed-up
Revies WW@ Vol 2
great 40's compilation.
Great Nostalgia

Songs That Got Us Through WW2, Vol. 2
Various Artists
Manufacturer: Rhino / Wea
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Similar Items:

Songs That Got Us Through WWII
Those Were Our Songs: Music of World War II
Great Records Of The Decade: 40's Hits, Vol. 1
G.I. Jukebox: Songs from World War II
Glenn Miller - Greatest Hits

ASIN: B0000033BK
Release Date: 1994-07-19

Tracks:

Juke Box Saturday Night - Glenn Miller & His Orchestra
Ration Blues - Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five
There! I've Said It Again - Vaughn Monroe & His Orchestra
Perdido - Duke Ellington & His Famous Orchestra
Mr. Five By Five - Freddie Slack & His Orchestra
Lili Marlene (German Version) - Marlene Dietrich
Is You Is Or Is You Ain't (Ma' Baby) - Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters
Caldonia - Woody Herman & His Orchestra
You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To - Dinah Shore
On The Atchison, Topeka And Santa Fe - Johnny Mercer & The Pied Pipers
Idaho - Benny Goodman & His Orchestra
Sweet Slumbe - Lucky Millinder & His Orchestra
When My Man Comes Home - Buddy Johnson & His Band
Mairzy Doats - The Pied Pipers
Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?) - Billie Holiday
San Fernando Valley - Roy rogers (King Of The Cowboys)
It Could Happen To You - Jo Stafford
Flying Home - Lionel hampton & His Orchestra

Customer Reviews:

Memories.......2007-07-22

The songs that were a part of the CD were well chosen, and they
fairly represented that era. My husband and I fully enjoyed this CD

Track titles mixed-up.......2007-06-13

This isn't really a review of the songs (I like them.) I just wanted to say that when I put my CD in my PC and opened the player the track titles did not match the songs. They were all mixed-up. For example, when I double-clicked on "Lil Marlene" I got "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe'. Very strange. I have no idea how this happened. The songs all sound great, though. It's just odd that the titles didn't match the actual songs.

Revies WW@ Vol 2.......2007-03-18

I am in mt mid-sixties (1941). I enjoyed Volume 2 better than the original CD. Both were good and if you are from my generation, you should enjoy either one.

great 40's compilation........2007-03-18

i was born in 1961, but like the geeky audiophile that i am, i have eagerly dug into all the decades that have produced recorded music. i always thought that the forties were one of the weaker decades out there when it comes to sonic delights. so why do i love the two volumes of "songs that got us through wwii" so much? rhino records has a lot to do with it. as all audiophiles of the cd age now, rhino is one of the best outfits around when it comes to compilations of music. on these 2 wonderful discs from the forties, they have done it again. pure pleasure is to be had here. one drifts back to another time, across decades, to experience the popular songs of another american culture. this is a perfect introduction to that decade for anyone. having heard these two volumes, i can't wait to give the forties another chance. i am being won over, i think. thanks rhino.

Great Nostalgia.......2007-01-04

I purchased this CD collection for my residents in a dementia/Alzheimers care unit. They enjoy singing along with the songs from their youth, and some can even name the band/artist performing. The CD is a fun collection of lively and sentimental popular hits from the 40s. It would make a great gift for a person who grew up during this era.

Average customer rating:

Classic!
WOW!!
Great Collection of Billie Holiday Songs
Oh, Billie! HOW DIVINE !!!
Fine CD

Love Songs
Billie Holiday
Manufacturer: Sony
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Classic Female Vocal Blues | Blues | Styles | Music

Traditional Blues | Blues | Styles | Music

General | Jazz | Styles | Music

Swing General | Swing Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music

Traditional Jazz General | Traditional Jazz & Ragtime | Jazz | Styles | Music

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Billie Holiday - Greatest Hits (Sony)
Love Songs
At Last!
Best Of Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
Pure Ella: The Very Best of Ella Fitzgerald

ASIN: B000002ACT
Release Date: 1996-03-12

Tracks:

All Of Me
You Go To My Head
Until The Real Thing Comes Along
My Man
The Very Thought Of You
Easy Living
They Can't Take That Away From Me
I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm
Them There Eyes
Night And Day
The Man I Love
Me, Myself And I
The Way You Look Together
If You Were Mine
I Can't Believe That You're In Love With Me
Let's Do It

Amazon.com essential recording

Culled from the Columbia Records reissue packages, variously released under the multivolume Quintessential Billie Holiday umbrella, this package goes straight for the love songs, the heart of Holiday. Ranging from such playful lyrics as "Let's Do It" and "Them There Eyes" to such essential Holiday as "You Go to My Head," "The Very Thought of You," and "Easy Living," this set is guaranteed to keep the home fires burning brightly. Lay this one on your lover next Valentine's Day. As was so frequently the case with Holiday, the ensemble support is impeccable, including many of the swingers from Columbia's Greatest Hits package. The bonus here is Count Basie on piano, leading his swinging big band on "They Can't Take That Away from Me." --Willard Jenkins

Customer Reviews:

Classic!.......2007-01-11

Anybody who loves jazz and the blues cannot be without this Billie Holiday CD. I love it. I can listen to it all day. It's a pleasure to hear great jazz and such an incredible voice.

WOW!!.......2006-11-09

This cd was the first Billie Holiday I ever purchased. WOW! She is the greatest, bar none! EVERY serious lover of music needs this work to add to their collection. I had no idea how special she was and how timeless her work. I am a fan for life.

Great Collection of Billie Holiday Songs.......2006-10-06

There are so many fabulous reviews for this CD and I have to agree with them. I've been a Billie Holiday fan for years and own many discs of her music, but I find myself reaching for this one a lot. It's a great collection of songs and her voice is so sweet and true here. She's in top form and the arrangements on the songs are all excellent. Whoever put this CD together knew what they were doing. This is definitely Billie during the earlier part of her career and there's a real lightness to this music. (Her later music is great too, but very different.) Most of the songs on this CD are classics and even if you're unfamiliar with her, you'll probably still recognize many of them. There is some crackling background noise on some of the songs, since they were recorded back in the late thirties/early forties, though it's not that bad and most of the time you barely notice it. Some of the stand outs are "You Go To My Head", "The Very Thought of You", "Let's Do It", "The Way You Look Tonight", just to name a few. I think this would be a great introductory CD for someone who is curious about her and would like to hear some of her music.

Oh, Billie! HOW DIVINE !!!.......2006-08-25

This CD is an excellent collection of great songs performed by the incomparable and legendary Billie Holiday. Billie could conquer any song--from the most vulgar to the most sublime with an electric performance that rivals the best singers of the 20th century.

The CD begins so beautifully with Billie singing "All Of Me" and continues on into "You Go To My Head" by Gillespie and Coots. As with the rest of the songs on this CD, there is some background surface noise as these recordings by Billie were made in the 1930s and the very early 1940s. Nevertheless, there is a certain romantic style to each recording that leaves the listener wanting more after every track.

There songs on this CD are truly timeless; Billie sings such standards as "You Go To My Head," "The Man I Love," "Let's Do It," "The Way You Look Tonight" and "The Very Thought Of You." Don't play this CD for the first time without having time to relax and enjoy it with a glass of your favorite wine--you'll want to listen to it again after you've played it through because it's that beautiful and special.

The liner notes include an essay by Delfeayo Marsalis, the song credits and the dates Billie recorded them, a beautiful black and white photograph of Billie singing at the microphone on stage and the lyrics to "You Go To My Head" and "Easy Living."

I highly recommend this CD for fans of Billie Holiday, classic vocals and the standards of the entire 20th century. Although it is only one CD, it still is a very good representation of Billie's talent. It makes a great starter CD for people who want to find out more about Billie before they purchase box sets, too. A terrific experience to be enjoyed! SMILE

Fine CD.......2006-04-28

This CD is a beautiful selection of classic Holiday. I really enjoy Holiday's voice. It is so natural and simple. Buy it. You won't be disappointed.

Average customer rating:

Biilie's phrasing was a heart-to-heart with the whole world--and no one ever wanted to go home
Beautiful
Fave Jazz Album!
Early greats from Lady Day
A great place to start, an album with a special treat!

Billie Holiday - Greatest Hits (Sony)
Billie Holiday
Manufacturer: Sony
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Classic Female Vocal Blues | Blues | Styles | Music

Traditional Blues | Blues | Styles | Music

General | Jazz | Styles | Music

Swing General | Swing Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music

Traditional Jazz General | Traditional Jazz & Ragtime | Jazz | Styles | Music

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Classic Vocalists | Broadway & Vocalists | Styles | Music

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Love Songs
Pure Ella: The Very Best of Ella Fitzgerald
Best Of Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
Billie, Ella, Lena, Sarah
At Last!

ASIN: B00000FC7M
Release Date: 1998-11-17

Tracks:

Miss Brown To You - Billie Holiday
What A Little Moonlight Can Do - Billie Holiday
I Cried For You - Billie Holiday
Billie's Blues (I Love My Man) - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
A Sailboat In The Moonlight - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
I Can't Get Started - Billie Holiday
When A Woman Loves A Man - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
Some Other Spring - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
Solitude - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
God Bless The Child - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
Gloomy Sunday - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
The Very Thought Of You - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
Body And Soul - Billie Holiday

Amazon.com essential recording

Curiously, yet not surprisingly given the enormity of his sway, Billie Holiday's greatest vocal influence was "Pops"--Louis Armstrong, whose trumpet was his first signature (though he's often credited with being the first great jazz singer as well). One hears Armstrong in Holiday's sense of phrasing, timing, and the warmth she invests in a lyric. This package, containing such touchstone Holiday renderings as "I Cried for You," "Body and Soul," and "When a Woman Loves a Man" (poetic, given the fact that Billie was notoriously unlucky at love), also boasts her signature song, "God Bless the Child." Her accompanists are a hall-of-fame lot, including trumpeters Roy Eldridge and Buck Clayton; saxmen Lester Young (with whom she had a close relationship), Ben Webster, Johnny Hodges, and Harry Carney; drummers Cozy Cole and Jo Jones; bassists John Kirby and Walter Page; and her frequent pianist, Teddy Wilson. --Willard Jenkins

Customer Reviews:

Biilie's phrasing was a heart-to-heart with the whole world--and no one ever wanted to go home.......2007-07-08

Billie Holiday could sing jazz and the blues unlike any other singer. Ever. Her voice was the ultimate instrument which could convey all the sorrows of her personal life as she sang about life, love and the pain of being discriminated against because she was African-American. We will never see another quite like Billie; this CD of thirteen of Billie's greatest hits from Sony doesn't even begin to scrape the surface of what this remarkably talented lady could do.

The CD track set begins with a number that's actually sassy as well as jazzy; Billie sings of how Emily Brown's "comin' to town;" but it's "Miss Brown to you." Listen for Benny Goodman on clarinet and Roy Eldridge on trumpet. Teddy Wilson does a great job on piano, too. Even though Billie was only 20 when this was recorded, she was already working with the best!

"What A Little Moonlight Can Do" gets a breakneck pace and a jazzy interpretation that would make any jazz artist green with envy. Billie's voice is light and clear as a bell; yet she imparts all the right emotions to her audience. Once again, Billie recorded this with The Teddy Wilson Orchestra. Teddy plays piano; Benny Goodman plays clarinet and Roy Eldridge plays trumpet. And ooh, how they jam!

"I Cried For You" gives Billie the chance to sing of how she cried for a man who left her--but she no longer cares for him and she won't waste one minute more worrying about that loser. The musicians work wonders before Billie even comes in; but when Billie comes in the number soars and Billie takes flight! Billie imparts the sense of all the pain in her past and how she's happy to have found a new man who loves her more. Teddy Wilson again plays piano; and listen for Harry Carney on both the clarinet and the baritone saxophone. Excellent!

"Billie's Blues" stuns you with its sublime treatment of the blues; Billie wrote this number and Artie Shaw himself plays clarinet! Billie sings about how her man treats her so poorly; and you believe every word she sings--she's THAT good at sharing her feelings from the depths of her soul.

"I Can't Get Started" is a number recorded live when Billie performed at The Meadowbrook Ballroom in Cedar Grove, New Jersey with Count Basie & His Orchestra. Despite the passage of time and the surface noise on this track, I distinctly feel everything Billie put into this song. Billie was unlucky in love and the pain of this problem helps her to deliver "I Can't Get Started" as if the lyrics were a intimate, personal and very private confession to you from the bottom of her heart. Wow.

"God Bless The Child" was one of Billie's most famous signature songs; and she delivers this with all her might. Billie sings so well because she truly means every word of the lyrics. This is not just another chanteuse singing a ballad; this is Billie Holiday once again sharing her most intimate feelings with her audience. Roy Eldridge plays trumpet and I predict you will enjoy this number very, very much.

"Gloomy Sunday" became associated with many a suicide; anyone deep in despair and hopelessness can identify with "Gloomy Sunday." Billie sings this so well because of the countless times she experienced these very emotions in her private life. "The Very Thought Of You" swings ever so slightly to infuse this ballad with just the right amount of energy and romantic effect. Billie's excellent diction, coupled with her light and clear voice, lets her perform "The Very Thought Of You" with twice the panache that any other singer could ever have infused into it.

The CD track set ends with the classic "Body And Soul." Billie sings of how she wants a man who doesn't love her in return. Billie sings from the bottom of her heart as she draws upon her personal pain from unrequited love. As always, Billie's delivery is flawless.

The liner notes include an informative essay by Timme Rosenkrantz; and the black and white pictures of Holiday are very tastefully arranged. The song credits and recording dates are there for you, too.

We will never again see another Billie Holiday. During her all too brief life she gave us more than most entertainers and "celebrities" do in a full lifetime. We are so much richer for Billie sharing her endless talents with us; and fortunately we can continue to experience her talents on CD for ages to come.

Beautiful.......2007-01-22

Billie Holiday is an amazing artist and I am proud to have her CD.

Fave Jazz Album!.......2005-05-27

Every tune is fab! Thankfully, the remastering has not diminished the old scratchy sound typically found in recordings from this era.

This is why I hate most modern jazz. This has genuine feeling, a raw sound, natural flow, and catchy licks--things lacking these days, IMO.

Pick this up if you are not a huge jazz collector, but just wish to add something worthwile to your otherwise ecclectic collection of music.

Early greats from Lady Day.......2005-04-30

I heard this CD while I was walking around Borders and just had to have it. These are early recordings - the music is fresh and joyous - the vocals are superb. I especially love the recordings of "Miss Brown To You," "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" (a treat), "Some Other Spring" and my very favorite, "I Can't Get Started." I have other Holiday recordings. However, this is the one I play again and again. I only wish that it had "Good Morning Heartache" on it. Oh, well.

A great place to start, an album with a special treat!.......2005-03-11

Almost everything Billie Holiday recorded, and maybe everything Billie recorded before 1941, like these sides, was great. Certainly, this collection doesn't have any of the very important work Billie Did during WWII for Commodore, nor does it have some of th exciting Jazzy recordings Billie did for Verve in the late 1940s and 1950s. Nor are any of the outstanding live performances by Billie for Jazz at the Philharmonic or in her Carneige Hall concerts on this CD.

With Billie who recorded for about 30 years on a lot of labels, the tendency was, particularly back in the days of LPs, for every owner of some Billie material to put out whatever they could crip together as Billie's greatest hits.

I have to say that I was introduced to Billie's greatest work, that in the 1930s, by owning this collection on Vinyl. This is nice fun and engaging music. On some of the great standards, she really makes it. Like all of her recordings for Columba and its ancestors back then, John Hammond Sr, gathers together some of the masters of Black and white swing Jazz to join her. Very shortly after she started recording, the greatest names in Jazz would flock to her sessions and play on her recordings for litte because of the innovation and creativity Billie showed as a jazz creator in her own right.
One special treat here is "I can't get started" with the Count Basie Orchestra. Billie was the first female singer with Count Basie's band, but because she was booked to Columbia and the Count had been shanghied by Decca, there were no studio recordings of Billie singing with the Basie Orchestra. This is an enormous loss to human culture. "I can't get started" is one of the two air checks (recordings made off of radio broadcasts) we have of Billie with the Baseities. The other "Swing it Brother Swing" is available on an album with air checks from a Basie broadcast from the Savoy Ballroom.

I really love the way her singing interplays with the backing particularly from the reed section, and love the sinuous solo Lester takes which is more mellow and romantic than the one he takes in the small group Billie Holiday recording of "I can't get started."

All of this is nice music. If you are not ready to take the plunge and get everything from the 1930s and early 1940s (to be followed by everything from the 1940s and then most of the stuff from the 1950s) this is as good as any place else to start. Nice fun, wonderful music, great jazz in both her voice and in the way that the sidemen swing in her honor.

Average customer rating:

A few good songs
A Collector's Must Have
You want Billie and you get Billie
excellent box
Great Overview of Her Recording Career

The Ultimate Collection
Billie Holiday
Manufacturer: Hip-O Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Classic Female Vocal Blues | Blues | Styles | Music

Traditional Blues | Blues | Styles | Music

General | Jazz | Styles | Music

Swing General | Swing Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music

Traditional Jazz General | Traditional Jazz & Ragtime | Jazz | Styles | Music

Vocal Jazz General | Vocal Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music

Classic Vocalists | Broadway & Vocalists | Styles | Music

Cabaret | Broadway & Vocalists | Styles | Music

Traditional Vocal Pop | Broadway & Vocalists | Styles | Music

General | Vocal Pop | Pop | Styles | Music

Traditional Pop | Oldies | Pop | Styles | Music
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Lady Day: The Best of Billie Holiday
The Hot Fives & Sevens
Lady in Satin
Charlie Parker: A Studio Chronicle 1940-1948
Love Songs

ASIN: B0007X9U2Y
Release Date: 2005-04-05

Tracks:

Miss Brown to You - Billie Holiday, , Teddy Wilson & His Orchestra
What a Little Moonlight Can Do
I Cried for You
Mean to Me
Strange Fruit
Fine and Mellow
God Bless the Child
Trav'lin' Light - Billie Holiday, , Paul Whiteman Orchestra
My Old Flame
I'll Get By (As Long as I Have You)
Billie's Blues
He's Funny That Way
Lover Man
Don't Explain
Good Morning Heartache
No Good Man
Blues Are Brewin'
Solitude
Easy Living
I Loves You Porgy
My Man (Mon Homme)
'Tain't Nobody's Bizness if I Do

Tracks:

Them There Eyes
You Can't Lose a Broken Heart - Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday
You're My Thrill
Crazy He Calls Me
Detour Ahead
These Foolish Things
You Go to My Head
Love Me or Leave Me
Willow Weep for Me
I Thought About You
I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm
Come Rain or Come Shine
It Had to Be You
What's New?
Lady Sings the Blues
I Cover the Waterfront [Live]
Body and Soul
But Not for Me
One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)
I'm a Fool to Want You

Tracks:

Saddest Tale [DVD]
Blues Are Brewin' [DVD] - Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra, Billie Holiday
Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans [DVD] - Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra, Billie Holiday
My Man (Mon Homme) [DVD]
Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone [DVD]
Billie's Blues [DVD]
Fine and Mellow [DVD]
What a Little Moonlight Can Do [DVD]
St. Louis Blues [DVD] - Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith
I Cover the Waterfront [DVD]
Swing! Brother, Swing! [DVD Audio]
They Can't Take That Away from Me [DVD Audio]
Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me [DVD Audio] - All Star Jam Band, Billie Holiday
I'll Get By [DVD Audio] - All Star Jam Band, Billie Holiday
I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone [DVD Audio] - Billie Holiday, Red Norvo & His Orchestra
Jeepers Creepers [DVD Audio] - Billie Holiday, Jimmy Rowles
Bonus Materials [DVD][*]

Amazon.com

Billie Holiday (1917-59) wore gardenias, was a teenaged prostitute, did drugs, and died with a cop posted outside her hospital bed. But with her gravel-like vocals, and behind-the-beat phrasing, she was one of the greatest singers of the twentieth century. This multimedia collection commemorates her ninetieth birthday. Two CDs contain forty two of her greatest hits, from her 1935 stint with Benny Goodman, to her chilling 1958 strings album, Lady in Satin. It features her signature songs like "Good Morning Heartache," "God Bless the Child," and her unforgettable anti-lynching number "Strange Fruit." The DVD includes film cameos with Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, photographs, posters, rehearsals and interviews with friends and musicians, including a rediscovered 1956 radio broadcast with a young Mike Wallace. Her achy artistry is timeless, and as Ashley Kahn wrote in his superb liner notes, "Billie will be there tonight, tomorrow night and a long time to come." --Eugene Holley, Jr.

Customer Reviews:

A few good songs.......2007-03-27

There are some good songs on this collection. Overall a good Billie Holiday presentation. Also descent quality.

A Collector's Must Have.......2007-02-20

If you are addicted to the music and sound of Lady Day, then you must include this collection in your music porfolio. One can never get too much of Holiday.

You want Billie and you get Billie.......2006-03-03

Loved the compilation. Nice mix of tunes and certainly hits som eof her more contreversial works. Nice packaging too, lots of music in a small and neat package.

excellent box.......2006-02-04

buy this one at www.yourmusic.com for only 13 dollars, which looks exact the same product as you buy here, but so stupidly cheap!

Great Overview of Her Recording Career.......2005-11-19

I agree with many of the others here that this is a great overview of Billie Holiday's recording career. There is not much to add to the comments about this marvelous collection, but I would like to add some observations and other information that Lady Day aficionados may find interesting.

Just to correct one of the other reviewers, the four Aladdin sides (Detour Ahead, Blue Turning Grey Over You, Be Fair With Me Baby and Rocky Mountain Blues) are all available on a Blue Note CD release titled Billie's Blues, which also includes the Paul Whiteman studio track Trav'lin' Light.

This collection does not include quite every label that Billie made studio recordings for: I wish they'd thought to include Billie's only recording with Artie Shaw, Any Old Time. It's much harder to track down than any of her other studio sides. Any Old Time is quite a jump for her stylistically, as it is done in a "big band" style that more evokes Glenn Miller, the Dorsey Brothers or, well Artie Shaw. It's available on more than one Artie Shaw CD release, but they are hard to find. I have it on a CD put out by the Jazz Heritage label under the album title "Frenesi".

One of the interesting inclusions on the Ultimate Collection DVD is a discography that lists virtually every Billie Holiday studio recording and all of her "authorized" live recordings. The only omissions I am aware of are some rare vinyl pressings (more about these later). Of course, there are many, many bootleg live recordings (most of these either very poorly recorded or they are examples of Lady Day at her worst, or both). I'd like to list a few interesting exceptions. In the 70's, TCB records put out a vinyl titled "The One and Only Billie Holiday - Lady Sings the Blues - Collectors Edition". It's mostly poor quality bootlegs, including the songs from the "soundtrack" for the film "New Orleans", but one track I've never found anywhere else is a radio transcript (?) of a live recording of Don't Explain that is absolutely breathtaking. Billie is in amazing voice, and her reading of the song was never more effective. She starts the track by exclaiming "I'd like to sing a song that I wrote; it's titled 'Don't Explain' ..." and then launches right into it, with a full orchestra. The audio quality is exceptional, but the track is marred by a slight "skip" on the first line that seems to have originated with the source material. Vocally, Billie never sounded better; I'd guess it was recorded around 1942. I've been hoping for years that this would pop up on a CD somewhere, but it seems to be the most elusive and rare track I own of her.

Other rare performances never released on CD include the infamous live set at the Storyville club in Boston, issued on the RIC label and later by Monmouth-Evergreen. This album is not very interesting, as it presents Billie in a poorly recorded setting and, vocally, she was having an off night, but it is of interest to aficionados and those who want to have a complete set of Lady's recordings. I am not aware that it's ever been released on CD.

Then there are the three albums of "radio and TV broadcasts" issued by ESP Disc on vinyl in the 70's. These were available briefly on CD in a three disc set, but I didn't bother acquiring it; the performances are not very worthwhile, except for a few that are available elsewhere.

In 1986, Blackhawk Records released a vinyl album of a "recently discovered" complete recital recorded October 5, 1958 at the Monterey Jazz festival. Guest musicians supporting Billie include Gerry Mulligan and Benny Carter (you know they're really there because they are introduced when they join the band halfway through the set). Billie's performance is not half bad, especially considering how late in her life it was recorded. Unfortunately, the best track on the album vocally, Good Morning Heartache, is ruined by the sudden appearance of a prop plane (it was an outdoor festival) coming in for a landing at Monterey airport. The engines drone on for several moments, at one point completely drowning out Billie and the band. Nevertheless, I have tried to find it on CD, and I am hoping that it will be eventually released, as it's especially interesting for it's superb audio quality. Also several of Billie's standards are refreshed by new arrangments, which seem to buoy her performance and make the 11 tracks all the more interesting.

Finally, in 1958 Columbia records gave a "party" for some of their recording artists at the Edwardian Room at the Plaza Hotel, NYC. Although not intended to be released commercially (the recording quality is marginal), in 1973 Columbia released two vinyl LP's called "Jazz at the Plaza" Volumes I and II. Volume I was the second part of the program, headed by Miles Davis, and Columbia recently released it on CD. Volume II, which has not yet appeared on CD (but I'm hopeful) presented the Duke Ellington Orchestra with special guests. The guest vocalists were Jimmy Rushing and Billie Holiday. Billie does two songs, When Your Lover Has Gone and Don't Explain, accompanied only by Duke Ellington on piano and Buck Clayton on trumpet. What's wonderful about it, aside from the fact that it's the only performance Billie recorded with Duke Ellington since she sang "Saddest Tale" in the 1935 short film Symphony in Black, is that Duke Ellington wrote a "new" piano arrangement for Don't Explain that is absolutely thrilling in it's simplicity and beauty. It's so good, that Billie used it for the rest of her life (there is a TV performance clip of her singing Don't Explain in 1958 with Mal Waldron that essentially uses the same arrangement - see the DVD release The Genius of Lady Day). Although only two tracks, it remains one of my favorite live late recordings of Billie Holiday.

Until the wonderful day when every single recording and video performance of the great Lady Day is available, the Billie Holiday Ultimate Collection is certainly a good start, and well worth the investment.

Average customer rating:

Best Jazz Album Of All Time
Billie may be crying her heart out--but she could still blow 'em all away--and that's no small feat !!!
Aged Like a Fine Wine
Lady Day without the extras
Lady's Swan Song

Lady in Satin
Billie Holiday
Manufacturer: Sony
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Classic Female Vocal Blues | Blues | Styles | Music

Traditional Blues | Blues | Styles | Music

General | Jazz | Styles | Music

Swing General | Swing Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music

Traditional Jazz General | Traditional Jazz & Ragtime | Jazz | Styles | Music

Vocal Jazz General | Vocal Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music

Classic Vocalists | Broadway & Vocalists | Styles | Music

Traditional Vocal Pop | Broadway & Vocalists | Styles | Music

General | Vocal Pop | Pop | Styles | Music

Traditional Pop | Oldies | Pop | Styles | Music

New Orleans Suite
John Coltrane: Crescent
Plays Duke Ellington
A Night at Birdland, Vol. 1
Plays Duke Ellington (20 Bit Master)

Accessories:

GPX C3948BI Ultra-Slim CD Player with 40-Second Anti-Shock Protection and Car Kit

ASIN: B000002AH9
Release Date: 1997-09-23

Tracks:

I'm A Fool To Want You
For Heaven's Sake
You Don't Know What Love Is
I Get Along Without You Very Well
For All We Know
Violets For Your Furs
You've Changed
It's Easy To Remember
But Beautiful
Glad To Be Unhappy
I'll Be Around
The End Of A Love Affair
I'm A Fool To Want You (Take 3)
I'm A Fool to Want You (Take 2 - Alternate Take)
The End Of A Love Affair: The Audio Story
The End Of A Love Affair (Stereo)
Pause Track

Amazon.com essential recording

A harrowing classic, Billie Holiday's personal favorite among her '50s albums captures the singer 17 months before her death, her once honeyed voice, scarred and weakened from punishing life, its ravages highlighted by the 1958 session's crisp sonics and the contrasting "satin" of Ray Ellis' sleek string arrangements. Yet it is that very contrast that explains the power of these performances: In revisiting its torchy standards, Holiday reduces them to their core of pain and longing, transforming "I'm a Fool to Want You," "You Don't Know What Love Is," and "You've Changed" into naked declarations as mesmerizing and unsettling as a horrific accident. Any postrocker that presumes pop standards and string sections automatically translate to "easy listening" hasn't listened to this. This 1997 version adds unreleased takes and a beautiful 20-bit digital transfer to extract every shivering pang of Holiday's music. --Sam Sutherland

Album Description

Limited 'Millennium Edition' reissue of classic 1958 album in a deluxe heavyweight miniaturized LP sleeve complete with inner sleeve and a Japanese-style obi strip on the spine. 12 tracks. Individually numbered. 1999 release.

Album Details

Limited Millennium Edition. Packed in a Heavy Weight Card Wallet that Faithfully Recreates the Original Vinyl Sleeve, Right Down to the Inner Bag. The Wallet Will Come in a Plastic Cover.

Customer Reviews:

Best Jazz Album Of All Time.......2007-07-12

I can only quote the eloquent review from Amazon:
A harrowing classic, Billie Holiday's personal favorite among her '50s albums captures the singer 17 months before her death, her once honeyed voice, scarred and weakened from punishing life, its ravages highlighted by the 1958 session's crisp sonics and the contrasting "satin" of Ray Ellis' sleek string arrangements. Yet it is that very contrast that explains the power of these performances: In revisiting its torchy standards, Holiday reduces them to their core of pain and longing, transforming "I'm a Fool to Want You," "You Don't Know What Love Is," and "You've Changed" into naked declarations as mesmerizing and unsettling as a horrific accident. Any postrocker that presumes pop standards and string sections automatically translate to "easy listening" hasn't listened to this. This 1997 version adds unreleased takes and a beautiful 20-bit digital transfer to extract every shivering pang of Holiday's music. --Sam Sutherland

Nothing to add more. Only that I own all her albums, as well as around 25000 mp3s of all kinds of artists like Sinatra, Hendrix, all that one could call good music. This album was her favorite, and it is possibly the most beautiful album I have come across in music.
As they say, only a sad life makes it possible to sing from the heart, as one can find out listening to Piaf and Callas among others. This beautifully melancholical album is a treasure of Billie Holiday's voice and embodies her work, which is, unfortunately, receded to recorded history.'
When NASA decides to shoot a CD into space again as they did in 1977, this should be the one!

Billie may be crying her heart out--but she could still blow 'em all away--and that's no small feat !!!.......2007-06-15

Many reviewers lament time and again that Billie Holiday's last record album, entitled Lady In Satin, is a difficult listen because of Billie's voice had deteriorated. Yes, it is true; her voice had deteriorated quite a bit by 1958 when these ballads were recorded. However, if you listen with your heart and not with your mind, Billie turns in a rather solid performance using her voice as an instrument to inject these songs with her own personal angst and regrets. If the truth be told, Lady In Satin is perhaps one of Billie's very finest recording sets.

The CD track set deals often with the theme of unrequited love and love gone awry; and the opening track, "I'm A Fool To Want You," showcases Billie's sadness as she laments the fact that she can't help loving a man who could never love her in return. The arrangement by Ray Ellis is rich; and the strings enhance the beauty of this number. Billie sings "I'm A Fool To Want You" with all the grace of the champion chanteuse she truly was. "You Don't Know What Love Is" features Billie singing about the heartbreak of "the blues" associated with unrequited love. Billie's excellent diction strengthens her performance. Yes, she may be crying her heart out; but Billie's not fading away quietly.

Other gems on this CD include the classic "I Get Along Without You Very Well;" Billie sings this to perfection and Ray Ellis' arrangement never allows a single superfluous note. "You've Changed" allows Billie to lament that her lover just isn't the same man she once loved so much; he doesn't love her anymore. The melody strikes me with its beauty and Billie's vocals add great poignancy to "You've Changed."

"I'll Be Around" gives Billie another opportunity to explore the pain of how she must wait for a man who she hopes will come to love her someday. Billie's interpretation of "I'll Be Around" glistens like pure gold and the musical arrangement shines, too. "The End Of A Love Affair" lets Billie sing of how her apparent happiness is nothing but a mask to hide the deep emotional pain she feels because her man has left her. Billie sings this magnificently; you are bound to be touched by this very pensive and forlorn ballad.

The CD version of Lady In Satin allows us the luxury of four bonus tracks. These bonus tracks give us a rare insight into how the album was developed and tweaked to get everything just right before they released it for sale. We get two alternate takes of "I'm A Fool To Want You;" and there's a fascinating track entitled "The End Of A Love Affair: The Audio Story." "The End Of A Love Affair: The Audio Story" offers us a listen of rarely heard studio chatter and we hear Billie clearly saying to someone "I don't know the tune." The orchestra then plays their arrangement for Billie to hear it all the way through so that she can get a better feel for how to deliver "The End Of A Love Affair." When Billie does perform this number, she sings a cappella; and you get an excellent example of Billie Holiday's flawless diction. We also get a stereo version of "The End Of A Love Affair." Excellent! There is a pause track at the end of the CD, too.

The liner notes include rarely seen photos of Billie and Ray Ellis working together; and you get the original liner notes by Irving Townsend. Ray Ellis also contributes a great essay about the making of this album. Phil Schaap goes into detail about the differences between alternate takes of the same songs in his own essay.

Billie Holiday remains a legendary chanteuse; and I doubt we'll ever see another female singer quite like her. Billie Holiday sang with all her heart and soul; and her adoring audiences everywhere loved her for it. I recommend this CD for Billie Holiday fans; and people who enjoy classic pop vocals with a subtle jazzy twist will treasure this CD for many years to come.

Thank you for everything, Billie Holiday! Bravo!!!

Aged Like a Fine Wine.......2006-11-12

LADY IN SATIN is indeed one of the most heartwrenching recordings one can listen to. Billie Holiday is at her finest moment, and unfortunately it was her last. As one reads the album's liner notes, Billie declaringly states, "I've got to sing with Ellis," Lady said, "I want this album more than anything else, and I want it to be good." This was Billie's favorite record, and undoubtedly so, she gave her heart and soul in producing a record that will leave a lasting impression on any listener. The initial 12 tracks on the album will will definitely hit the gut. The remaining four bonus tracks and alternate takes offer a little revealing glimpse of what Billie was like during the recording session.

Overall, Billie finely stands alone backed by Ray Ellis' lush orchestration. This is not muzak, but a great collection of tracks done by one of jazz music's quintessential female vocalists. One will hear the sound of Billie's singing with its strength and agility despite the somewhat somber lyrics in songs, such as "I'm A Fool To Want You," "You Don't Know What Love Is," and "I'll Be Around." Indeed, this record is a true depiction of the torchsong singer.

Every genre of music experiences a period of progression. LADY IN SATIN was recorded in 1958, and amidst the changing face of popular music, Rock and Roll took over the airwaves, popular jazz music moved into a different direction than when "Lady Day" originally burst onto the jazz music scene over 20 years earlier, the record has stood the test of time, but with an inkling of historical irony and atomsphere. Indeed, this recording is Billie's best effort, and many may criticize her vocals, but by listening to the songs, it has aged like a fine wine for someone who literally tasted the fringes of life.

Lady Day without the extras.......2006-03-10

This classic album lives completely up to expectations to the extent that it contains all the original material. But, the only people I know that appreciate the tacked on alternative versions are the techno-fanatics.

Lady's Swan Song.......2006-02-21

The first time I heard the distinctive timbre of Billie Holiday's immortal voice which somehow speaks to us from the deepest haunts of the soul, I believe I was somewhere in the vicinity of my mother's apron strings, and remember her remarking to the effect, "Now, that's a tragedy - she was so great . . . a mere shadow of what she was - terribly, terribly self-destructive", echoing the common sentiment. Lady Day was still alive at that time. And I remember the furl between the eyebrows of her original producer with Columbia, John Hammond Sr., when, some twenty years later, he recalled what is referred to on the copious liner notes of this awesome 1997 Sony reissue of the 1958 original as "the more lurid elements of the Billie Holiday saga". And since her death 17 months after this recording, the discussion has raged around that curious question: "Who was greater (or, in our abstracted experience of the media, unfortunately, "which"), the early Lady, or the later?" The early Billie - with her spectacular range, her unmatched phrasing, cadence, her youthful charm - adored by her sidemen and audiences alike - or the later - in her finest hour - on this recording - the heart-broken, broke, haggard, dispossessed junkie - in the words of her primary collaborator (by request) on this effort, Ray Ellis - " When we began recording and I heard the first playback, I was quite shook up. The quality of Billie's voice had really deteriorated. It was very noticeable to me after listening to all her early records".

"Lady in Satin", one of the towering masterpieces of the genre (maybe THE masterpiece), should put that dispute to rest forever, but, undoubtedly, it won't. Gone is the full body of Billie's voice, gone - any of the usual repertoire of her well-known classic titles which have since become cultural standards - too numerous to list ... well, you know them. What is conveyed is something else, which today is curtly and rather tritely as referred to as " the ineffable". The resiliency of the human spirit which will not be denied, even in the face of ultimate denial, perhaps . . . staring squarely into the crack of doom? A frank and strangely satisfying discussion of the downside of love and desire? Billie, who chose the repetoire, in the brief time which remained to her, once called this palpably torturous session her "favorite" recording. One wonders exactly what she meant. Ray Ellis, a musician of stoic discipline, who could only have existed before the advent of the Beatles and after the gentrification of Kansas City, a maestro of what we today call `1950's musak', said: "After we finished the album, I went into the control room and listened to all the takes. I must admit I was unhappy with her performance, but I was listening musically instead of emotionally. It wasn't until I heard the final mix a few weeks later that I realized how great her performance really was".

Of course, one cannot fail take note of the destiny of what is perhaps the supreme moment in this effort, "The End of a Love Affair", amazingly absent from the first stereo issues. On this set, we have along with a remastering of the original, a number of `rejected' studio outtakes. You will listen to them all. Also, mention must be made of the great performance of trombonist Urbie Green, a legendary ensemble player, who really does "swoop down like an angel" on "For Heaven's Sake" and throughout these tracks.

Alright, listen to "I'm a Fool to Want You", her version of "You Don't Know What Love Is", the final four cuts on the album, including the aforementioned masterpiece, "The End of a Love Affair", and tell me if your Billie Holiday collection is complete without this one. And the refrain which seems to especially come to mind: "Time and time again . . ."

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