For this double-disc set commemorating her American postage stamp (and patterned after Ella Fitzgerald's Songbook series), Verve compiled two discs of Billie Holiday...
more >
There's something scandalous about the fact that this 13-song CD is, as of spring 2000, the only upgrade to date of Columbia Records' holdings on Billie Holiday. It's good...
more >
This double LP contains 28 selections recorded under Billie Holiday's name during 1936-42, mostly from 1940-2. Some of the performances are alternate takes, although one...
more >
While this Classics disc of Billie Holiday's 1937-1939 sides beats out Columbia's Quintessential titles for sound quality, it does pale a bit as far as top-notch material...
more >
Strictly for completists, this Storyville CD has 25 performances but just ten separate songs; 15 are alternate takes. Slightly more complete than an Affinity box set that...
more >
GRP's Greatest Hits is not designed for collectors or serious fans, and it will likely frustrate them. However, casual fans and the curious will be well served by this...
more >
This two-disc set features some of Billie Holiday's top Verve performances from the mid-'50s. Over the course of 28 cuts, she runs the emotional gamut from summery optimism...
more >
Billie Holiday sang plenty of love songs throughout her career, yet it still seems a little odd to have a Holiday collection entitled Love Songs, mainly because her love...
more >
Billie Holiday recorded on four occasions for the Commodore label: once in 1939 (a date that resulted in "Fine and Mellow" and "Strange Fruit") and three sessions in 1944...
more >
Priceless Jazz Collection is a budget-priced compilation that intends to give neophytes an affordable introduction to Billie Holiday's Decca recordings. Although purists and...
more >
Shirley Horn compiled The Ultimate Billie Holiday, a 16-track selection of her best-known songs that offers an excellent introduction to her Verve recordings. Although...
more >
The second Billie Holiday collection focuses on her renditions of American popular-song classics like "Body and Soul," "Night and Day," "Until the Real Thing Comes Along,"...
more >
Two things stand out in these early recordings. One, of course, is Lady Day's already fully mature style. The other is the superb quality of the musicians who backed her. A...
more >
This volume of the Classics Chronological series places Billie Holiday's music in historical context to an unusual degree, as her recordings for the Columbia and Commodore...
more >
Though purists will find Billie Holiday's This Is Jazz, Vol. 15 frustratingly incomplete, it isn't designed for them. The entire This is Jazz series is targeted at casual...
more >
Intercontinental's Golden Hits is a budget-priced collection of re-recordings of such hits as "God Bless the Child," "Strange Fruit," " My Man," "Lover Come Back to Me,"...
more >
This Jazz Unlimited CD (available through Storyville) features multiple takes of Billie Holiday during the last four sessions from her early prime years. Strangely enough,...
more >
This French compilation features 25 tracks from 1947, a most productive year for Lady Day. Kicking off with nine tracks with Teddy Wilson's orchestra (with two versions each...
more >
Offering a viable alternative to Columbia's popular Quintessential series of Billie Holiday's 1933-1942 sides, Classics' multi-disc survey of the singer's early material...
more >
Australian sound engineer Robert Parker has developed a unique way of making simulated stereo recordings out of old 78s, extracting far more sonic detail from these ancient...
more >
The final volume in this nine-CD series contains all of Billie Holiday's recordings from her final 16 months with the label. Highlights include "St. Louis Blues," "Loveless...
more >
Most of this excellent CD features one of Billie Holiday's finest concert recordings of the 1950s. Recorded in Europe before an admiring audience, this enjoyable set finds...
more >
There is no end in sight to the debate over Billie Holiday's career as a vocalist: Is the essence of her art to be found in her early recordings for Columbia or in the...
more >
This session comes from close to the end of the line (1959) in the erstwhile swinging company of Barney Kessel on guitar, Ben Webster on tenor, and naysayers will be quick...
more >
Culled from Holiday's mid-'50s recordings on Verve, the 13 tracks here present a fine overview of Holiday's autumnal prime; no rough sides to be found, just cherry-picked...
more >
Rich pathos or below-par performances? The debate goes on with regard to Billie Holiday's latter-day recordings for Verve. Listening to this and other two-fers from that...
more >
Stellar two-album set of Holiday's early work, primarily with the Teddy Wilson Orchestra, that serves as a blueprint for the modern jazz singers approach--Sinatra, Simone...
more >
MCA Special Products' God Bless the Child is a solid budget-line collection of highlights from Billie Holiday's recordings for Decca. Although this is far from a definitive...
more >
A dozen of Lady Day's very best sides from 1944 to 1949 are aboard this wonderful collection. Classic takes on material like "Lover Man (Oh Where Can You Can You Be?),"...
more >
Of Verve's countless number of Billie Holiday samplers, this one -- which is actually a second helping from the Jazz Masters series -- is as good as any of them...
more >
The fourth of nine CDs in this essential series of Billie Holiday's studio recordings of 1933-1942 features the great tenor Lester Young on eight of the 16 performances....
more >
The fifth of nine CDs in the complete reissue of Billie Holiday's early recordings (sans alternate takes), this great set has 18 selections, all but four featuring tenor...
more >
Billie Holiday's first recordings for Norman Granz' Clef Records present a vocalist truly at the top of her craft, although she would begin a rapid decline soon thereafter....
more >
Billie Holiday is heard at her absolute best on this attractive two-CD set. During her period on Decca, Lady Day was accompanied by strings (for the first time), large...
more >
During the six days and four sessions covered by this 1997 CD (which in its original form consisted of six songs), Billie Holiday recorded 18 titles; a dozen of the best are...
more >
A '91 reissue from late in Billie Holiday's career. She was fading, but hadn't lost the dramatic quality in her delivery, nor her ability to project and tell a shattering...
more >
Taken from a couple of sessions taped during 1955-1956, Lady Sings the Blues, Vol. 4 finds Holiday in top form and backed by the sympathetic likes of tenor saxophonists Budd...
more >
This budget compilation seems determined to counter Billie Holiday's image as a mournful singer by choosing 12 selections from her Brunswick and Vocalion sessions of the...
more >
Not really "the original recordings," but gems, from the 1935 "Miss Brown to You" to 1958's "You've Changed." Most are from her great late-'30s to early-'40s era: "God Bless...
more >
The logic behind this sampler is puzzling. Rather than reissue the very best of Billie Holiday's Columbia recordings on a three-CD box set or a package of her rare alternate...
more >
16 Most Requested Songs is a mid-priced collection that spotlights many of Billie Holiday's best-known and most popular performances for Columbia Records, including "Body...
more >
The third of nine CDs that document all of Billie Holiday's studio recordings of 1933-1942 for Columbia has classic versions of "Pennies From Heaven," "I Can't Give You...
more >
This very interesting CD has a variety of mostly rare Billie Holiday live performances from 1944-49. In addition to two selections with the 1944 Esquire All-Stars, Lady Day...
more >
There are many jazz lovers, even dedicated ones, who cannot afford to part with the 150 dollars or so that the ten-disc Complete Billie Holiday on Verve commands, so this...
more >
This CD contains 20 selections featuring Billie Holiday in a variety of live performances covering a 15-year period. Starting with two songs in 1944 in which she was backed...
more >
Part of the label's top-notch series of roundup discs, Verve Jazz Masters 12: Billie Holiday cherry-picks the best of Holiday's '50s stretch under Norman Granz's watch. At...
more >
The sixth of nine CDs in this very worthy series traces Billie Holiday's recording career throughout much of 1938. Although not containing as many true classics as Vol. 5,...
more >
The second of nine volumes in this essential series (all are highly recommended) continues the complete reissue of Billie Holiday's early recordings (although the alternate...
more >
After years of reissuing Billie Holiday's recordings in piecemeal fashion, Columbia finally got it right with this nine-CD Quintessential series. All of Lady Day's 1933-1942...
more >
In the U.S. as well as Europe, so many Billie Holiday collections have been available on CD that if you're exploring her music for the first time, it's hard to know where to...
more >
Fourteen of Billie Holiday's studio sides from 1935-38 (most of which were originally under the leadership of pianist Teddy Wilson) are reissued on this Drive Archive CD....
more >
Most albums containing "Strange Fruit," the anti-lynching protest song Billie Holiday recorded in 1939, also contain some of her other recordings for Commodore Records,...
more >
A very nice 15-track budget set drawn exclusively from performances with Norman Granz' Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts, this captures Lady Day at a pivotal point in her...
more >
If you're a completist who insists on having everything that Billie Holiday recorded, The Complete Commodore Recordings is required listening. But for the more casual...
more >
Pulled from old 78s, this isn't the place to start your Billie Holiday collection by a long shot. But this two-disc set is a pretty great overview of Lady Day's rise to...
more >
In conjunction with the release of Ken Burns' ten-part, 19-hour epic PBS documentary Jazz, Columbia issued 22 single-disc compilations devoted to jazz's most significant...
more >
Billie Holiday began her career at the age of 15 singing in nightclubs, where John Hammond and Benny Goodman discovered her. Such a long career steeped in stage performance...
more >
Lady's earliest and best-known work--a high-water mark of jazz vocal art--finally gets the limousine treatment it deserves from Columbia/Legacy. The 10 CDs here compile 220...
more >
Lady's earliest and best-known work--a high-water mark of jazz vocal art--finally gets the limousine treatment it deserves from Columbia/Legacy. The 10 CDs here compile 220...
more >
When Sony/Columbia began its ambitious Legacy reissue project, those who followed their jazz titles knew it was only a question of time before the massive Billie Holiday...
more >
While it can't hope to compete with the impressive box sets of her work or even more specialized single-disc collections, 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection:...
more >
An impossible task. These are some of her best single cuts from the Columbia years, but only for those who prefer a completely condensed approach. ~ Ron Wynn, All Music...
more >
Forget for a moment that The Best of Lady Day: The Best of Billie Holiday was tied into the release of the superb box set, {Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on...
more >
Lady Day Swings collects some of the legendary songstress' best-known swing performances, including "What a Little Midnight Can Do," "Nice Work If You Can Get It," "Them...
more >
A Musical Romance gathers some of the most romantic songs Billie Holiday recorded with Lester Young, including "The Man I Love," "Time on My Hands (You in My Arms)," "I Must...
more >
Blue Billie collects some of the legendary songstress' best-known ballads and blues-inflected songs, including "Gloomy Sunday," "Billie's Blues," "Am I Blue?," and "God...
more >
Part of Verve's Diva Series of compilations, this Billie Holiday collection is by no means the definitive account of her career -- Columbia's Lady Day: The Best of Billie...
more >
The recordings found here are all from 1949-1952. They represent six different broadcasts: one each from the Eddie Condon Show, the Art Ford Show, Storyville, and Armed...
more >
Billie Holiday recorded so much excellent material, and her finest moments are so well-known to even neophytes, that labels stray from the canon at their own risk. Holiday's...
more >
At first glance, a CD of Billie Holiday tracks handpicked by comedian/actor Billy Crystal may seem an odd bird. However, given that Crystal's uncle, record producer Milt...
more >
The first of five volumes on the obscure British label Acrobat, The Incomparable, Vol. 1 concentrates on the series of sides recorded by Billie Holiday at the dawn of her...
more >
This is the most controversial of all Billie Holiday records. Lady Day herself said that this session (which finds her accompanied by Ray Ellis' string orchestra) was her...
more >
