Billie Holiday
The Complete Commodore & Decca Masters
Verve Records
www.ververecords.com
By George Harris

This limited edition 3 disc set of Billie Holiday’s Commodore and Decca
years (39-50) have been separately reissued a multitude of time and
ways, but this set makes the most sense, as it finally puts these
classic recordings all together in one package. If you know nothing
about Lady Day, her career is essentially divided into a) Columbia
small group recordings in the 30s b) popular band and orchestra/string
vocals represented here c) Verve small group sessions 45-59 d)
desultory vocals in the late 50s on Columbia.
By far, these are her most popular, and justifiably so. They include
gently swinging Eddie Heywood sextet with Frankie Newton’s trumpet on
the stellar and haunting “Strange Fruit” and evocative “Fine and
Mellow.” Likewise, her reading here of “I Cover The Waterfront” and “On
The Sunny Side Of The Street” from 1944 catches Holiday at her most
insouciant.

The Decca sessions were the first ones that had Holiday with strings,
and they work superbly. “Lover Man” is done definitively here, while
“Don’t Explain” and “Good Morning Heartache” are simply Holiday at her
most vulnerable. The backup players include Hall of Famers like Buck
Clayton/tp, Lester Young/ts, and Vic Dickerson/tp, but the highlight
here is the combination of Holiday with Louis Armstrong on “My Sweet
Hunk O’ Trash” and “You Can’t Lose A Broken Heart.” If you’ve ever
wondered where to start with Holiday, here’s a great place start; it’s
where I did 35+ years ago.