12 TheRecord APRIL 8, 2005 Lady Day: All Day, Every Day

By Sheri M. Whitley Smith and Aretha Franklin. Holiday’s childhood was punc- rom April 1 to April 15, tuated by a number of events that WKCR radio will feature a contributed to the self-destruc- 24-hour-a-day Billie Holiday tive behavior that would eventu- F Festival. ally claim her life. Her mother What’s your favorite: “I Loves was 17 when Holiday was born, You, Porgy” or “God Bless the and her father abandoned the Child”? Or maybe your fancy is tick- family shortly thereafter. Unable led by some of Lady Day’s lesser- or unwilling to care for her, known pieces, say,“Swing Brother, Holiday’s mother left her in the Swing” or “Your Mother’s Son-in- care of her grandparents and law.”Either way,you’re in for a treat. moved to New York City. Holiday Broadcast in celebration of and her mother were reunited what would have been Lady’s years later in a less than optimal Day’s 90th birthday, this first-ever situation: At 13, Holiday became radio “Billie-blast”will include cel- an errand girl in the brothel ebrated hits along with some of where her mother worked. her more obscure numbers, Those early events left an culled from the more than 700 indelible mark on her sense of songs she is known to have self. Holiday is known to have recorded. The festival, broadcast made up more socially acceptable in highest audio clarity, will stories about her childhood in include commentary by noted what many scholars say was an jazz historians. attempt to appear respectable. Born Eleanora Fagan Gough on Farah Jasmine Griffin, professor April 17, 1915, in Baltimore, of English and comparative litera- Holiday came into her own dur- ture at Columbia and director of ing the heyday of jazz. She was the Institute for Research in . Gottlieb/Ira and Leonore S. Gershwin Fund Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress. discovered at age 17 by John African American Studies, notes,

Hammond, the music producer “[Holiday] told stories that would William P who is also famous for having dis- lend her an air of respectability. covered music greats Benny She was certainly aware of the Portrait of Billie Holiday and Mister, taken by famed jazz documentarian William P. Gottlieb on assignment for Downbeat magazine, New York, N.Y., ca. June 1946. Goodman, Count Basie, Bessie stereotypes of black women, and she wanted to present an image of her mother that was more sive sales. And jazz aficionados ing and command of her instru- heard Billie Holiday sing,she knew “The emotional power complicated.” still debate the details of her ment inspired some of this centu- she herself could sing. You can Griffin, author of If You Can’t life—the year she was born, her ry’s greatest musicians, from also hear her [Holiday’s] influence of this definitive jazz singer Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search relationship with her father and vocalists Frank Sinatra and Etta in Nora Jones and Erykah Badu.” of Billie Holiday, also points out her involvement with prostitu- James to clarinetist Benny Drug and alcohol abuse con- also reaches the hearts of that Holiday’s inventiveness may tion. But there is no disagreement Goodman and saxophonist Lester tributed to a decline in Holiday’s have been motivated by a desire to about her influence. Young, who gave Holiday the control of her voice and claimed her many listeners who create different public and private “The emotional power of this nickname “Lady Day.”These mem- life on July 17, 1959. Her death at personas.“She told stories that she definitive jazz singer also reaches bers of jazz royalty all count age 44 marked the end of a tumul- appreciate her alone knew would sell,”Griffin says. the hearts of many listeners who Holiday as an influence. tuous life, a life that can be relived Her stories and the cloak of appreciate her alone among jazz “She is second only to Louis through her songs, the lyrics of among jazz performers.” mystery they created around her performers,” says historian Phil Armstrong in terms of influence which she infused with the experi- sold almost as well as her Schaap, curator of Jazz at Lincoln on jazz musicians,” says Griffin. ence of having lived them. —Phil Schaap records—and they still do today. Center and one of the experts Current popular musicians also For more information on the curator, Jazz at Lincoln Center Her autobiography, Lady Sings who will offer historical foot- cite her as an inspiration. festival, go to WKCR 89.9 FM or the Blues, cowritten with William notes during the festival. According to Griffin, “Macy Gray online at www.columbia.edu/cu Dufty, continues to have impres- Holiday’s behind-the-beat tim- once remarked that once she /wkcr. School of Journalism Announces 2005 Lukas Prize Project Awards

By Madeleine Perez

first-hand account from the front- lines of the Iraq war by Evan Wright, a history of California farm- A workers by Richard Steven Street and the true story of a catastrophic coal mine fire by Joan Quigley received this year’s J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Awards,bestowed by the Graduate School of Journalism and the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University. Established in 1998, the prizes recognize excellence in nonfiction writing—works that exemplify the literary grace, commitment to serious research and social concern that char- acterized the distinguished work of the awards’ Pulitzer Prize-winning namesake J. Anthony Lukas, who died in 1997. One of the three prizes is named for the late Mark Left: Evan Wright, winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize; center: Joan Quigley was awarded Lynton, a business executive and author, the J. Anthony Lukas Work-In-Progress Award; right: Richard Steven Street, who won the Mark whose family sponsors these prizes. Lynton History Prize. Winners were chosen from 360 submis- sions, the largest ever in the history of the awards. Below are the winners and the with incompetent leaders and the individual broadly American—experience. Deeply decades.After the fire nearly took the life of a judges’ citations. soldiers’ reactions to pervasive violence and researched and movingly written, the book young boy, the community mobilized in an Wright won the J. Anthony Lukas Book death make Wright’s book a major contribu- itself is a veritable epic with almost Homerian attempt to force the government to take Prize, which comes with a $10,000 award, tion to the literature of war.” pathos, bringing to life a lost world whose action on ‘an environmental calamity rivaling for Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, The judges also named one finalist: Jason effects and consequences are felt right to the Love Canal.’ Quigley, a daughter of Centralia, Captain America and the New Face of DeParle, for American Dream:Three Women, present day.” offers a haunting depiction of small town American War. Ten Kids and a Nation’s Drive to End One finalist in the Mark Lynton History neighbors struggling against a powerful indus- “With clear and powerful prose, Wright Welfare. Prize was noted: Melvin Patrick Ely for his try and a distant government—and finally, has written a classic book of war reportage. Steven Street won the Mark Lynton History book Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern against one another—in their attempt to But while evoking the timeless themes of Prize, which also carries a $10,000 award, for Experiment in Black Freedom from the cope with an environmental catastrophe and camaraderie and brutality, he has also pro- his book Beasts of the Field: A Narrative History 1790s Through the Civil War. Ely recently the savage backwash of industrial change.” duced something deeper and more unusual. of California Farmworkers, 1769–1913.“Beasts received the Bancroft Prize from Columbia. Two finalists in the Lukas Work-in-Progress Generation Kill is an unforgettable and at of the Field tells the story of California farm- Quigley received the J. Anthony Lukas Award were noted:Untitled on the American times chilling portrait of the modern workers from the middle of the 18th century Work-In-Progress Award, which comes with a Legal System by Amy Bach and The Big American soldier. It reveals both the cultural to the start of the 20th century.Along the way, $45,000 prize,for Home Fires:The Tragedy of Squeeze by Steven Greenhouse. and military mores that members of the it introduces an extraordinary host of individ- an American Mining Town. “Joan Quigley’s The awards ceremony will be held on Marines First Recon battalion carried with uals and groups: Native Americans, Mexicans, work-in-progress, Home Fires, is a multilay- Tuesday, May 3, at the Graduate School of them to Iraq and the ways that they adjusted Anglos, Chinese, Japanese and various immi- ered and passionate study of a community in Journalism.They will be presented by Linda to the brutal realities of war.The vividness of grant Europeans.Taken together,their struggles flames: the old mining town of Centralia, Healey, cochair of the Lukas Prize the writing, the straightforward description and sufferings constitute a vivid and historical- Pennsylvania,which sits atop an underground Committee and Marion Lynton, a member of of men killing while under fire, the struggles ly significant panorama of Western—and more fire that has been burning for more than four the committee.