Review of Billie Holiday : Essential Masters of Jazz: Billie Holiday
Budget-priced compilation featuring 20 digitally remastered original recordings by this legendary jazz artist. Comes packaged in an embossed double gatefold digipak with silver lettering. Includes 'On The Sunny Side Of The Street', 'When You're Smiling' and 'God Bless The Child'. 1999 release.

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Your latest reviews - Billie Holiday : Great Overview of Her Recording Career
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.