I have known something about Billie Holiday for years but never known very much, nor have I heard her sing very much. As my interest in jazz has grown, with quite a bit of help from the Ken Burns film, I found that I wanted to have a CD that would encapsulate her career. The first CD I had came from the end of her career from the 1950s and so I thought of picking up the Billie Holiday CD issued in conjunction with the Ken Burns documentary. This overview of Billie Holiday was what I had been searching for.

Unfortunately, some of the best jazz recordings come from a time when records were made by cutting wax cylinders. Sometimes the sound cannot be appreciably improved; it all depends on what there is to work with. The first track on this is CD "I Cried For You" with the Teddy Wilson Orchestra, from 1936, starts with some noticeable hissing but most of it is soon reduced to a whisper as the band plays its introduction. Then, Billie Holiday sings her brief solo. Her voice is slightly distorted but is clear and strong and memorable. The same is true with the second track but from then on the sound is free from such disturbing noise. For me, it is a small price to pay to be able to hear early Billie Holiday recordings.

The recordings from the late 1930s and through the 1940s are Billie Holiday at her best. The lynching song Strange Fruit is beautifully sung and Ms. Holiday lends great expression to the lyrics. The most unforgettable of the song for me was Solitude. The way that Ms Holiday's voice meshes with the orchestra is amazing and clearly the best demonstration of how she was able to make a song her own. The Decca records made during the mid-40s paired her with orchestras that had large string sections, like Paul Whiteman's Orchestra. In these songs Billie Holiday really shines with great elegance.

An interesting track is Fine and Mellow, where there is a brief introduction and we hear Billie Holiday speak. He voice sounds a bit rough, and this was a time when he voice was all but gone, but she still manages to sing so expressively and memorably. The same is true for "You've Changed." The voice is much changed but the expression that is there makes this a masterpiece.

I recommend this collection for someone who, like me, is looking for a comprehensive collection of Billie Holiday. This will certainly be a disc I will frequently play.

You can't quibble with the songs selected to represent Lady Day's recorded career, especially when among them are "Strange Fruit," "Yesterdays," "Solitude," "God Bless the Child," "Gloomy Sunday," and "Fine and Mellow." But I'm afraid the final effect of this "Definitive" edition is to minimize Holiday's art by telescoping it on a single disc which, when played back, calls more attention to the fluctuations of her voice than to the interpretations and performances themselves. First we're reminded that the technology is inadequate to the task of capturing her youthful sound, and then it begins to become apparent that she cannot conceal her tired, failing voice from the sensitive microphones and improved recording equipment of the 1950s.

To my ears, the Columbia vinyls make her sound richer, fuller, more "present"--even in the 1930s--than the digital remastering served up on this anthology. I also find it regrettable that the enclosed booklet, while documenting dates and musicians, offers no justification for song selections. I can imagine many among the curious and unitiated hearing little more than distracting surface noise on the first three recordings and wondering about the sub-studio quality of a couple of the later selections. Finally, I have to question a musical assessment that praises her as someone who could "make a song her own by imposing her personality on it."

If there's any singer who resisted the temptation to subjugate her material to the artist's ego, it's Billie. No singer is so natural, so transparent, so unforced. When she sings, here's nothing between us and the naked emotion of the song. The music and poetry issue from her lips as freely as, well, one of God's own children.

When the Ken Burns' documentary "Jazz" first came out, many critics complained that he scrimped on the contributions of some major jazz legends (Fats Waller immediately comes to mind) and virtually ignored anything happening after 1961. What they just didn't understand was that the documentary was only meant to be a starting point...an introduction to the storied past and the diverse music styles of the jazz world.

The same holds true with Ken Burns Jazz series of artist compilations. This one by Billie Holiday is the best place to start as any, offering selections from across her entire career and from all her major recording labels. Despite her voice's limited range (even in her younger days before drugs and hard living took their toll, power was never her strong suit), Billie is a master at somehow capturing the ache and subtle phrasing of each and every song. Try this one before moving on to her other releases. "Autumn In New York" will make you cry in your coffee.