《strange fruit》

　　《God bless the child》

　　《巴黎的四月》

　　《Georgia on my mind》

　　《Gloomy Sunday》

　　《Easy Living》

　　《黑色星期天》

　　若論演唱技巧，billie比不上另一位天后級的爵士歌手ella fitzgerald,但從詮釋歌曲深度方面來說，確實無人能與之相比。聽billie唱歌，很少有人不被感動到落淚的。與其說她是在唱歌，還不如說她是在娓娓道出令人心碎的故事來得更確切，她的音域雖不寬廣，但卻滲透出生命幻滅的悲壯，令她在離開多年后。仍被無數(shù)歌手視作最崇敬的對象。

　　Billie Holiday的一生和她的音樂一樣苦澀晦暗；來自破碎的家庭，出生的時候父母都還是未婚的毛頭小鬼，在平民窟里掙扎長大，十歲被強暴后就淪為雛妓，直到十五歲在紐約一家Club里表演被制作人John Hammond發(fā)現(xiàn)，Billie Holiday的日子才有一點光采。雖然她的歌唱技巧不是頂佳完美的，但是嗓音里有一股自信和許多歷練的記號，以致后來許多作曲編曲及樂手主動和她合作錄制唱片。她的嗓音有另外一個特點就是“擬樂器化”，扁扁平平但是飽滿豐富的次中音saxophone特別相像。 1930年到1940年間Billie Holiday錄制了好幾首在爵士樂史上占有非常重要位置(也奠定她在爵士樂史上位置)的歌曲；例如和saxophone大師LesterYoung的作品集、和搖擺大樂團指揮CountBasie及ArtieShow的作品，以及1939年所發(fā)表的StrangeFruit和非常富有藍調感覺的Fine&Mellow等作品。Strange Fruit(日本歌手chara最新專輯名稱也取為Strange Fruit，大概靈感也來自這里吧?)是最受爭議的一首曲子；所謂的“奇異果”其實指的是美國中南方三K黨及種族極端主義者把黑奴吊死在樹上的景象，Billie Holiday把黑人的怒氣爆發(fā)了出來，不只贏得了黑人的同感也贏得白人的尊敬。

　　雖然Billie Holiday的事業(yè)已經(jīng)達到了巔峰，卻也加速了她的死亡；她一直逃不出她童年悲苦命運的陰影，只好從酒精及麻藥中去尋找避難所，20多歲就有嚴重酗酒的記錄，直到最后一天的日子里，她的生命里就只有唱歌、烈酒、大麻和海洛因，還有無數(shù)令她傷心欲絕的男人。1959年她44歲，病毒發(fā)作死在醫(yī)院里，身邊也沒有親人，只有一群原本要捉她去戒護所的警察。但是這一切無法掩蓋她的作品對所有喜歡爵士樂的人的影響力和重要性，你下次若有機會到美國Balfimore市(Billie Holiday的故鄉(xiāng))去玩，在Pennsylvania和Lafayette大道路口有一座3公尺高的Billie Holiday銅像，去看一看，再到附近的咖啡館點一杯espresso，再聽聽她的音樂。

　　Billie Holiday’Introduction

　　The first popular jazz singer to move audiences with the intense, personal feeling of classic blues, Billie Holiday changed the art of American pop vocals forever. Almost fifty years after her death, it’s difficult to believe that prior to her emergence, jazz and pop singers were tied to the Tin Pan Alley tradition and rarely personalized their songs; only blues singers like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey actually gave the impression they had lived through what they were singing. Billie Holiday’s highly stylized reading of this blues tradition revolutionized traditional pop, ripping the decades-long tradition of song plugging in two by refusing to compromise her artistry for either the song or the band. She made clear her debts to Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong (in her autobiography she admitted, "I always wanted Bessie’s big sound and Pops’ feeling"), but in truth her style was virtually her own, quite a shock in an age of interchangeable crooners and band singers.

　　With her spirit shining through on every recording, Holiday’s technical expertise also excelled in comparison to the great majority of her contemporaries. Often bored by the tired old Tin Pan Alley songs she was forced to record early in her career, Holiday fooled around with the beat and the melody, phrasing behind the beat and often rejuvenating the standard melody with harmonies borrowed from her favorite horn players, Armstrong and Lester Young. (She often said she tried to sing like a horn.) Her notorious private life a series of abusive relationships, substance addictions, and periods of depression undoubtedly assisted her legendary status, but Holiday’s best performances ("Lover Man," "Don’t Explain," "Strange Fruit," her own composition "God Bless the Child") remain among the most sensitive and accomplished vocal performances ever recorded. More than technical ability, more than purity of voice, what made Billie Holiday one of the best vocalists of the century easily the equal of Ella Fitzgerald or Frank Sinatra was her relentlessly individualist temperament, a quality that colored every one of her endlessly nuanced performances.

　　Billie Holiday’s chaotic life reportedly began in Baltimore on April 7, 1915 (a few reports say 1912) when she was born Eleanora Fagan Gough. Her father, Clarence Holiday, was a teenaged jazz guitarist and banjo player later to play in Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra. He never married her mother, Sadie Fagan, and left while his daughter was still a baby. (She would later run into him in New York, and though she contracted many guitarists for her sessions before his death in 1937, she always avoided using him.) Holiday’s mother was also a young teenager at the time, and whether because of inexperience or neglect, often left her daughter with uncaring relatives. Holiday was sentenced to Catholic reform school at the age of ten, reportedly after she admitted being raped. Though sentenced to stay until she became an adult, a family friend helped get her released after just two years. With her mother, she moved in 1927, first to New Jersey and soon after to Brooklyn.

　　In New York, Holiday helped her mother with domestic work, but soon began moonlighting as a prostitute for the additional income. According to the weighty Billie Holiday legend (which gained additional credence after her notoriously apocryphal autobiography Lady Sings the Blues), her big singing break came in 1933 when a laughable dancing audition at a speakeasy prompted her accompanist to ask her if she could sing. In fact, Holiday was most likely singing at clubs all over New York City as early as 1930-31. Whatever the true story, she first gained some publicity in early 1933, when record producer John Hammond only three years older than Holiday herself, and just at the beginning of a legendary career wrote her up in a column for Melody Maker and brought Benny Goodman to one of her performances. After recording a demo at Columbia Studios, Holiday joined a small group led by Goodman to make her commercial debut on November 27, 1933 with "Your Mother’s Son-In-Law."

　　Though she didn’t return to the studio for over a year, Billie Holiday spent 1934 moving up the rungs of the competitive New York bar scene. By early 1935, she made her debut at the Apollo Theater and appeared in a one-reeler film with Duke Ellington. During the last half of 1935, Holiday finally entered the studio again and recorded a total of four sessions. With a pick-up band supervised by pianist Teddy Wilson, she recorded a series of obscure, forgettable songs straight from the gutters of Tin Pan Alley in other words, the only songs available to an obscure black band during the mid-’30s. (During the swing era, music publishers kept the best songs strictly in the hands of society orchestras and popular white singers.) Despite the poor song quality, Holiday and various groups (including trumpeter Roy Eldridge, alto Johnny Hodges, and tenors Ben Webster and Chu Berry) energized flat songs like "What a Little Moonlight Can Do," "Twenty-Four Hours a Day" and "If You Were Mine" (to say nothing of "Eeny Meeny Miney Mo" and "Yankee Doodle Never Went to Town"). The great combo playing and Holiday’s increasingly assured vocals made them quite popular on Columbia, Brunswick and Vocalion.

　　During 1936, Holiday toured with groups led by Jimmie Lunceford and Fletcher Henderson, then returned to New York for several more sessions. In late January 1937, she recorded several numbers with a small group culled from one of Hammond’s new discoveries, Count Basie’s Orchestra. Tenor Lester Young, who’d briefly known Billie several years earlier, and trumpeter Buck Clayton were to become especially attached to Holiday. The three did much of their best recorded work together during the late ’30s, and Holiday herself bestowed the nickname Pres on Young, while he dubbed her Lady Day for her elegance. By the spring of 1937, she began touring with Basie as the female complement to his male singer, Jimmy Rushing. The association lasted less than a year, however. Though officially she was fired from the band for being temperamental and unreliable, shadowy influences higher up in the publishing world reportedly commanded the action after she refused to begin singing ’20s female blues standards.

　　At least temporarily, the move actually benefited Holiday less than a month after leaving Basie, she was hired by Artie Shaw’s popular band. She began singing with the group in 1938, one of the first instances of a black female appearing with a white group. Despite the continuing support of the entire band, however, show promoters and radio sponsors soon began objecting to Holiday based on her unorthodox singing style almost as much as her race. After a series of escalating indignities, Holiday quit the band in disgust. Yet again, her judgment proved valuable; the added freedom allowed her to take a gig at a hip new club named Café Society, the first popular nightspot with an inter-racial audience. There, Billie Holiday learned the song that would catapult her career to a new level: "Strange Fruit."

　　The standard, written by Café Society regular Lewis Allen and forever tied to Holiday, is an anguished reprisal of the intense racism still persistent in the South. Though Holiday initially expressed doubts about adding such a bald, uncompromising song to her repertoire, she pulled it off thanks largely to her powers of nuance and subtlety. "Strange Fruit" soon became the highlight of her performances. Though John Hammond refused to record it (not for its politics but for its overly pungent imagery), he allowed Holiday a bit of leverage to record for Commodore, the label owned by jazz record-store owner Milt Gabler. Once released, "Strange Fruit" was banned by many radio outlets, though the growing jukebox industry (and the inclusion of the excellent "Fine and Mellow" on the flip) made it a rather large, though controversial, hit. She continued recording for Columbia labels until 1942, and hit big again with her most famous composition, 1941’s "God Bless the Child." Gabler, who also worked A&R for Decca, signed her to the label in 1944 to record "Lover Man," a song written especially for her and her third big hit. Neatly side-stepping the musician’s union ban that afflicted her former label, Holiday soon became a priority at Decca, earning the right to top-quality material and lavish string sections for her sessions. She continued recording scattered sessions for Decca during the rest of the ’40s, and recorded several of her best-loved songs including Bessie Smith’s "’Tain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do," "Them There Eyes," and "Crazy He Calls Me."

　　Though her artistry was at its peak, Billie Holiday’s emotional life began a turbulent period during the mid-’40s. Already heavily into alcohol and marijuana, she began smoking opium early in the decade with her first husband, Johnnie Monroe. The marriage didn’t last, but hot on its heels came a second marriage to trumpeter Joe Guy and a move to heroin. Despite her triumphant concert at New York’s Town Hall and a small film role as a maid (!) with Louis Armstrong in 1947’s New Orleans, she lost a good deal of money running her own orchestra with Joe Guy. Her mother’s death soon after affected her deeply, and in 1947 she was arrested for possession of heroin and sentenced to eight months in prison.

　　Unfortunately, Holiday’s troubles only continued after her release. The drug charge made it impossible for her to get a cabaret card, so nightclub performances were out of the question. Plagued by various celebrity hawks from all portions of the underworld (jazz, drugs, song publishing, etc.), she soldiered on for Decca until 1950. Two years later, she began recording for jazz entrepreneur Norman Granz, owner of the excellent labels Clef, Norgran, and by 1956, Verve. The recordings returned her to the small-group intimacy of her Columbia work, and reunited her with Ben Webster as well as other top-flight musicians such as Oscar Peterson, Harry "Sweets" Edison, and Charlie Shavers. Though the ravages of a hard life were beginning to take their toll on her voice, many of Holiday’s mid-’50s recordings are just as intense and beautiful as her classic work.

　　During 1954, Holiday toured Europe to great acclaim, and her 1956 autobiography brought her even more fame (or notoriety). She made her last great appearance in 1957, on the CBS television special The Sound of Jazz with Webster, Lester Young, and Coleman Hawkins providing a close backing. One year later, the Lady in Satin LP clothed her naked, increasingly hoarse voice with the overwrought strings of Ray Ellis. During her final year, she made two more appearances in Europe before collapsing in May 1959 of heart and liver disease. Still procuring heroin while on her death bed, Holiday was arrested for possession in her private room and died on July 17, her system completely unable to fight both withdrawal and heart disease at the same time. Her cult of influence spread quickly after her death and gave her more fame than she’d enjoyed in life. The 1972 biopic Lady Sings the Blues featured Diana Ross struggling to overcome the conflicting myths of Holiday’s life, but the film also illuminated her tragic life and introduced many future fans. By the digital age, virtually all of Holiday’s recorded material had been reissued: by Columbia (nine volumes of The Quintessential Billie Holiday), Decca (The Complete Decca Recordings), and Verve (The Complete Billie Holiday on Verve 1945-1959).

　　比利Holiday’Introduction首流行爵士樂歌手與時激烈，觀眾的經(jīng)典藍調個人的感受，Billie Holiday的改變了美國流行聲樂藝術永遠。她去世后將近50年，很難相信她的出現(xiàn)，爵士樂和流行歌手前被捆綁到蒂恩帕恩阿傳統(tǒng)，很少個性化他們的歌曲，像貝西史密斯和馬雷尼只藍調歌手實際上給人的印象是他們經(jīng)歷過他們在唱。 Billie Holiday的高度程式化的傳統(tǒng)閱讀本藍色革命傳統(tǒng)的流行音樂，撕掉了兩堵，拒絕妥協(xié)，無論是歌曲或帶她的藝術歌曲長達數(shù)十年的傳統(tǒng)。她清楚她的債務，貝西史密斯和路易斯阿姆斯特朗（在她的自傳，她承認：“我一直想貝西的大聲音和流行音樂’的感覺”），但實際上她的風格幾乎是她自己，不少在一個通用的年齡休克低音歌手和樂隊的歌手。在她的光輝，通過對每一個記錄的精神，假日的技術專長相比也表現(xiàn)出色，她同時代的絕大多數(shù)。通常由陳舊蒂恩帕恩阿她被迫早在她的職業(yè)生涯紀錄的歌曲無聊，假日愚弄與周圍的節(jié)拍和旋律，節(jié)拍措辭背后，往往振興與她最喜歡的喇叭播放器，阿姆斯特朗借來的旋律和聲標準和萊斯特年輕。 （她經(jīng)常說她想唱像一個喇叭。）她的私人生活中臭名昭著的虐待關系，物質成癮系列，抑郁癥的時期無疑幫助她的傳奇地位，但假日的最佳表演（“情人人”，“不要解釋“，”怪果“，她自己組成”上帝保佑孩子“）中仍然有記錄以來的最敏感和完成聲樂表演。以上技術能力，純度超過語音，是什么讓比利假日本世紀容易的艾拉或法蘭仙納杜拉等于最好的歌手之一，是她不懈個人主義者氣質，優(yōu)質，彩色每一個細致入微的表演，她不斷地之一。 Billie Holiday的混亂的生活已開始就在巴爾的摩于1915年4月7日（少數(shù)報道說，1912年），她出生時埃利諾拉費根歌賦。她的父親，克拉倫斯假日，是一個十幾歲的爵士吉他和班卓琴的球員后來發(fā)揮弗萊徹亨德森的樂團。他從來沒有娶了她母親，塞迪費根，離開，而他的女兒還是個嬰兒。 （她后來碰到他在紐約，雖然她簽約她的會議之前，他在1937年去世許多吉他手，她總是避免使用他。）休的母親也是當時年輕的少年，以及是否因經(jīng)驗不足或忽視，往往留下了她的女兒漠不關心的親戚。假日被判處天主教學校在改革的10歲，據(jù)說她承認被強奸后。雖然被判留到她成為一個成人，一個家庭的朋友幫助她獲得釋放后短短的兩年時間。與她的母親，她于1927年，先后不久，新澤西州和紐約布魯克林。在紐約，假日幫媽媽做家務，但很快就開始作為額外收入兼職妓女。根據(jù)重Billie Holiday的傳說（取得了眾所周知的猜測之后，她的自傳藍調歌唱夫人），她在1933年突破大唱來時在一家非法經(jīng)營的可笑的舞蹈試演促使她伴奏，問她，如果她能唱更多的信任。事實上，假日是最有可能在紐約市所有在俱樂部早在1930年至31年歌唱。無論真實的故事，她第一次獲得了在1933年初，當唱片制作人約翰哈蒙德只有三年的宣傳比自己年齡較大的假日，僅僅在一個傳奇的職業(yè)生涯開始說她在一列的旋律和設備，以使本尼古德曼1她的表演。之后在哥倫比亞制片廠錄音示范，假日參加了一個小組，由各古德曼領導就11月27日她的商業(yè)亮相，以“你母親的女婿1933年�！彪m然她沒有回過一年的工作室，比利提出了1934年假日花了競爭紐約酒吧現(xiàn)場的梯級。到1935年初，她在她的阿波羅劇院首演，并與艾靈頓公爵的一個矯正機電影出現(xiàn)。在1935年下半年，假日終于再次進入錄音棚錄一共有4個會議。由鋼琴家特迪威爾遜監(jiān)督回升樂隊，她在記錄中30年代的一個模糊的，忘記的歌曲，換句話說的錫盤溝弄直，唯一的歌曲提供給一個不起眼的黑色帶系列。 （在揮桿的時代，音樂出版嚴加在社會流行樂團和歌手的白人手中的最好的歌曲。）盡管歌曲質量差，假日和各種團體（包括小號手羅伊埃爾德里奇，約翰尼霍奇斯女低音，男高音和本韋伯斯特和楚貝里）活力，如“月光什么能夠做一個小單位的歌曲”，“二十四小時一節(jié)”和“如果你屬于我”（更遑論“Eeny Meeny Miney武無”和“勝利之歌從來沒有向城市“）。偉大的組合演奏和假日的歌聲使他們越來越放心在哥倫比亞比較流行，布倫瑞克和Vocalion。在1936年，假日參觀由吉米倫斯福德和弗萊徹亨德森，領導小組隨后返回了幾會，向紐約。 1月下旬1937年，她錄制了從哈蒙德的新發(fā)現(xiàn)，貝西伯爵的樂團之一撲殺一小群幾個數(shù)字。萊斯特年輕的男高音，誰知道會簡要比利幾年前，和小號手巴克克萊頓的人，成為特別重視假日。沒有他們的三個最好的記錄工作中的每一天，在30年代后期，和假日自己賦予年輕的昵稱普雷什，而他配音，她的優(yōu)雅她的夫人日。到1937年春天，她開始與Basie的巡回演出，女性補充他的男歌手，吉米拉欣。該協(xié)會歷時不到一年的時間，但是。雖然正式她被開除的氣質和不可靠的，更高的陰影影響了世界報的出版指揮的行動開始后，她拒絕唱女布魯斯樂隊20年代的標準。至少暫時，此舉實際上受益離開Basie的假期后不到一個月，她被阿蒂肖的流行樂隊雇用的。她在1938年開始組，一位黑人與白人女性群體中出現(xiàn)的第一個實例中的一個唱歌。盡管整個樂隊的持續(xù)支持，但是，顯示推動者和電臺贊助商很快就開始反對假日根據(jù)她非正統(tǒng)的演唱風格幾乎和她的比賽了。經(jīng)過一系列升級侮辱，假日退出樂隊厭惡。再次，證明了她的判斷有價值;添加的自由讓她去上髖關節(jié)一新的俱樂部演出名為咖啡協(xié)會，第一個是跨種族的觀眾歡迎的夜總會。在那里，比利假日學到的歌曲，她的職業(yè)生涯將彈射到一個新水平：“怪果”。該標準由咖啡協(xié)會定期書面和劉易斯艾倫永遠綁假日，是一種強烈的種族主義依然在南方持續(xù)痛苦的報復。雖然假日最初關注加入此一禿，不妥協(xié)的歌給她演奏的疑慮，她一把扯下來在很大程度上要歸功于她的細微差別和微妙的權力。 “怪果”很快成了她表演的亮點。雖然約翰哈蒙德拒絕記錄在案（不為政治，而是其過于刺鼻的圖像），他讓假日的杠桿作用位記錄的Commodore，標簽由爵士樂記錄店主米爾特加布勒擁有。一旦釋放，“怪果”被取締后，許多無線電商店，雖然增長點唱機行業(yè)（以及優(yōu)良的“優(yōu)雅柔和的翻轉列入”）已相當大，雖然有爭議，擊中。她繼續(xù)為哥倫比亞唱片公司錄制，直到1942年，并擊中她最有名的組成，1941年的“上帝保佑孩子大了�！奔硬祭�，誰也工作了德卡的A&R，簽署了1944年的標簽記錄“情人人”的書面她和她的第三大受歡迎，尤其是一首歌曲。整齊的副作用加強音樂家工會禁令折磨她的前標簽，假日很快成為一個優(yōu)先考慮的德卡，贏得她會向高品質的材料和奢華的弦樂組的權利。她繼續(xù)錄制德卡分散會議期間，40年代的休息，并記錄了她最喜愛的歌曲，包括一些貝西史密斯的“那還不至于沒水喝如果我能做到的，”“他們有眼睛”和“瘋狂他呼吁我。“雖然她的藝術高峰，比利假日的感情生活開始于1940年代中期動蕩的時期。已經(jīng)進入大量酒精和大麻，她開始吸食鴉片早在10年與她的第一任丈夫，杜琪峰夢露。他們的婚姻并沒有持續(xù)，但炎熱來到緊跟其后的第二次婚姻吹鼓手喬蓋伊和轉向海洛因。盡管她的勝利音樂會在紐約大會堂及作為女仆（小電影的角色呢�。┡c路易斯阿姆斯特朗在1947年的新奧爾良，她失去了一個很好的協(xié)議運行的錢她與喬蓋自己的樂隊。她的母親去世后不久，她的深入，1947年受影響，她涉嫌藏有海洛因，被判處8個月監(jiān)禁。不幸的是，假日的麻煩不僅繼續(xù)在她的釋放。該藥物收費，不可能為她獲得歌舞表演卡，所以夜總會表演，出了問題。由來自陰間的所有部分（爵士樂，毒品，歌曲出版等）的各種名人鷹派的困擾，她soldiered為德卡直至1950年。兩年后，她開始為爵士樂企業(yè)家諾曼葛蘭茲，唱片公司老板的優(yōu)秀錄音譜號，Norgran，1956年，神韻。這些錄音回到她到她的哥倫比亞工作小組親密關系，并回歸本韋伯斯特她以及其他一流的，例如奧斯卡彼得森，哈利“糖果”愛迪生，音樂家和查理剃須刀。雖然艱苦的生活造成的破壞已開始她的聲音就其收費，假日的中不少是50年代的唱片一樣激烈，因為她的美麗的經(jīng)典之作。在1954年，假日參觀歐洲大獲好評，她帶來了她1956年的自傳更加名聲（或惡名）。她讓她上一次是在1957年偉大的外觀，在CBS電視臺提供了一個特殊的密切支持與韋伯斯特，萊斯特楊，和科爾曼霍金斯爵士的聲音。一年后，在夫人穿著緞子唱片與光線埃利斯的雕飾字符串她赤身露體，越來越嘶啞的聲音。在她的最后一年，她在5月之前在歐洲的心臟和肝臟疾病1959年倒塌的兩個出場。不過采購海洛因而在她臨終，假日涉嫌藏在她的私人房間和7月17日死在同一時間，她的戰(zhàn)斗系統(tǒng)都無法完全撤出和心臟病。她邪教組織的影響力迅速蔓延，她去世后，給她的名氣比她更會在生活中享受。 1972年的傳記片夫人藍調歌唱特色戴安娜羅斯努力克服假日生活沖突的神話，但這部影片還照亮她的悲慘生活和未來提出了許多球迷。到了數(shù)字時代，幾乎所有的假日的記錄材料已重新印發(fā)：哥倫比亞（9冊典型的比利假日），達藝（完整德卡錄音），和Verve（Billie Holiday的完整的神韻1945年至1959年