Billie Holiday: The Life and Artistry of Lady Day (review) Gerald A. Notaro

Notes, Volume 66, Number 3, March 2010, p. 647 (Review)

Published by Music Library Association DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/not.0.0324

For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/376389

[ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ] Video Reviews 647

Billie Holiday: The Life and Artistry of Lady Day. DVD. Andorra: Idem Home Video, 2002. IDVD 1115. $19.95.

Is twenty-seven minutes too little time to only is it still in print after fifty years, but present the life and artistry of the best jazz also has been reissued dozens of times. vocalist in music history? Certainly, but Musical film clips include those from the some contemporary viewers view twenty- feature film New Orleans in which Billie re- seven minutes as a lifetime, itself. It is diffi- luctantly agreed to play a maid in order to cult to convince a modern audience to appear and perform with her friend Louis watch or listen to artists just for what they Armstrong; rare television appearances in- have contributed, no matter how massive cluding her final one singing “Fine and the artistic contributions are. Perhaps the Mellow” from the Voice of Jazz CBS special fact that it contains some of her most mem- (1957) with Roy Eldridge, Doc Cheatam, orable filmed performances is thanks Vic Dickensen, Lester Young, Ben Webster, enough for Billie Holiday: The Life and Coleman Hawkins, Gerry Mulligan, Mal Artistry of Lady Day. All the biographical Waldron, Danny Barker, Milt Hinton, and facts are there, presented in a straightfor- Osie Johnson, and the dazzling though in- ward manner with archival photographs complete “Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody and narration: rape at age ten, prostitution of Negro Life” with Duke Ellington. The at fourteen, racism, the drugs and alcohol. sound throughout the DVD is remastered But also here are the artistic triumphs that (smoothed) and the video quality of the defined a style of music and singing ad- clips varies. Extras like the discography and mired by the entire world. Even in here last bibliography are woefully incomplete. years, sadly her early forties, her voice rav- Though Billie Holiday: The Life and Artistry of aged from time and abuse, the best jazz Lady Day is a good introduction, a much musicians, producers, arrangers still wanted better choice for a comprehensive collec- to work with Lady Day. Her voice was never tion is Lady Day–The Many Faces of Billie the best. Ella and others outshone her Holiday (Kultur, D1292; 2003, 1991). tone. But her masterpiece record album Lady in Satin proved phrasing and interpre- Gerald A. Notaro tive creativity wins artistry every time. Not University of South Florida, St. Petersburg

The Robert Cray Collection. DVD. Directed by Bill Bowman. London: Cherry Red Films and Pearson Productions Limited, 2009. PPCR025. $19.95.

The Robert Cray Collection, originally re- video styles from that era, a mixture of un- leased on VHS in 1991, consists of nine mu- adorned performances and those attempt- sic videos, with the singer-guitarist offering ing to illustrate what Cray is singing about, brief, mostly banal comments between each as with the feeble dramatizations in “Conse- number. Cray was one of the first in a short quences” and “The Forecast (Calls for line of younger blues musicians, which Pain).” Much better is the animation of Cray later included such performers as She- and his beloved in “Acting This Way,” fea- mekia Copeland and Keb’ Mo’, who have turing primitive efforts to blend animation tried to keep alive the traditions of Robert with live action. The enjoyable “Nothin’ But Johnson, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, a Woman” features another cliché of the pe- Jimmy Reed, and Koko Taylor. While tradi- riod: the very attractive woman, obviously a tional blues is gritty and bawdy, full of sex, model, prancing about to make the music violence, and the laments of loneliness, seem sexier and even pretending to play a Cray offers a much more polished ap- music instrument, that phallic favorite the proach, which some might label slick. saxophone in this instance. Cray’s blues lends itself well to the music Four of the videos, including “The video format, especially that of the easy- Forecast (Calls for Pain)” were directed by going, non-threatening 1980s. The Robert Oley Sassone, who has gone on to an undis- Cray Collection offers a microcosm of music tinguished career making direct-to-video