Collectables Jazz Classics (series)

Fine And Mellow

Description by OLDIES.com:

Lady sings the blues, as well as pop standards, torch songs, and jazz classics on this amazing collection. Billie Holiday was not just one of the greatest jazz vocalists of all time; she was one of the greatest vocalists, period. This collection showcases her remarkable vocals on many of the songs associated with this great artist: "My Man," "Lover Man," "Them There Eyes," and more.

Product Description:

FINE AND MELLOW is a collection of live performances and radio transcriptions from various periods of Billie Holiday's career.

Personnel includes: Billie Holiday (vocals).

Includes liner notes by David Nathan.

If one were asked to come up with a story line more tragic than Billie Holiday's, surely nobody would believe it. Of course we can never know whether suffering all those cruel slings and arrows--drug addiction, prostitution, jail, an endless string of failed love affairs, the Jim Crow treatment in spite of stardom--was necessary for her to achieve such peerless artistry. Whatever the answer, that artistry, in all its tortured brilliance, is on full display throughout FINE AND MELLOW.

This collection brings together studio and live performances predominantly from Holiday's middle and late periods, the late '40s and the '50s. Her sultry tease of a delivery turns standards such as "They Can't Take That Away From Me" and "You've Changed" into personal statements of utter singularity. Also included is a brief excerpt from a radio interview ("Introduction into Fine and Mellow") with Billie explaining her blues sensibility and tempo variability.