Complete Verve Studio Master Takes
The final decade of Billie Holiday's life was one in which the singer, in the clutches of drugs and poor taste in men, slowly withered away. Amid this tragedy, Lady Day carried on with a bittersweet dignity that seemed only to grow as the years passed. Her matchless phrasing added a profundity to a worn-out lyric and her dark, ragged timbre exuded a venerable wisdom, but at the same time she acquired a faded vulnerability not heard in her earlier years. Collecting her studio work between 1952 and 1959 (when she died), this six-CD/100-song set offers a long and loving look at the Holiday of this era. She's joined here by the crème of jazz with an orchestra session at the end. And whereasThe Complete Billie Holiday on Verve, 1945-1959also offers uneven rehearsal tapes as well as live and radio performances, this collection zeroes in on prime studio cuts. This is for lovers of Lady Day, but not the obsessive.--Tad Hendrickson