The generation that lived in a time when Billie Holiday was a real, live jazz artist is long gone into the mists of the inevitable, but the spirit that lives inside of her music lingers almost like a mythical dream. Her status as a performer has taken on legendary proportions that outweighs just about any other musical artist of her time, but it also distracts us from the reality of who she was. Lady Day was larger than life, but that is mostly because she lived every aspect of what life could offer her, from the bottom to the top, or vice versa.

With this series, the purpose is to play a good number of her vast array of classic recordings, but also to humanize her and to ‘feel’ the intensity that is an intrinsic part of her songs, regardless of whether they were beautiful, playful, or forlorn. For that reason, I feel that it’s necessary to hear her tell her own story as she lived it; to take her away from the mystical place where most contemporary listeners hear her now, and to try to convey the humanity that ultimately created the legend. We start with Billie discussing her life in her own words, and of course, there is also the music.

Featured tracks:

Your Mother’s Son-In-Law

Riffin’ the Scotch

I Wished on the Moon

What a Little Moonlight Can Do

Miss Brown to You

A Sunbonnet Blue (and a Yellow Straw Hat)

I’m Painting the Town Red

It’s Too Hot for Words