The passages I’ve so far quoted from the Benny Green book might create the impression that he’s a perceptive but harsh critic who likes to destroy great figures in jazz. That is not the case. His essay on Billie Holiday is written with such sensitivity that he makes me listen to her music again.
“… when one listens to all these recordings indiscriminately, the skilful songs and the average jingles, the peculiar truth emerges that for some reason they were all more or less as good as each other, that apparently Billie Holiday was independent of the material she used. Songs came to her as competent minor products of the popular music machine of the day went through the treatment, and emerged as the touching expression of thoughts and emotions their composers had never dreamed of. ‘Me, Myself, and I’ sung by anyone else would be no more than the slightly cretinous but not objectionable expression of the infatuation of one person for another. The Billie Holiday recording is positively joyous. It abounds with the expression of a happy, helpless love, so that the triteness of the lyric disappears to be replaced by a wit of expression whose incongruity with the original tune is almost comical.”
Note that this comes from a man who is against the concept of jazz singers, except for people like Louis Armstrong, “whose methods of vocal expression are so clearly extensions of their instrumental personalities”. The idea of a jazz singer, to him, goes against the improvisational nature of jazz. But Billie Holiday is an exception. Benny Green writes about “Body and Soul”:
“When Billie sings the words, she invests them with an intensity achieved by the childishly simple device of singing them as though she meant them. The fact that she chooses to sing the lesser-known alternate lyrics on the last middle eight, the lines that begin ‘What lies before me, a future that’s stormy?’ suggests that she must have given close thought to the meaning of the words before singing them.”
He reminds me of why there was a period in 2015 when I listened to Billie Holiday all day, almost exclusively. Hers might not be the kind of music we can enjoy all the time, but when we’re in the right mood, her performance beats everyone else’s in its intensity and depth of feeling. It is amusing to see Benny Green denigrate Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. I’ve never felt much when listening to Sarah Vaughan, except for “Whatever Lola Wants” and “Lullaby of Birdland”, much as I admire her range and vocal techniques; Ella Fitzgerald is a singer I like a lot, but now I’m listening to Billie Holiday again—just place side by side their renditions of the same song, Lady Day almost always wins (except for “Summertime”, my favourite version is the one by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong). Billie Holiday makes the perfection of Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald appear hollow.
“Much later in her career, when the ravages of a desperately unhappy life were beginning to tell, her range shrank much more seriously, so that in singing old stand-bys like ‘Body and Soul’ and ‘These Foolish Things’, she dropped her key by a tone or sometimes more. But by then her voice had changed so profoundly in character that she was a different kind of artist altogether. The great virtue of the recordings from the 1st period was their heart-lifting optimism, a certain buoyancy of spirit which made the listen feel an affinity for a disembodied sound whose owner he might never have heard of before. I am convinced that for much of the time Billie was not consciously aware of what she was doing while she was doing it. To her, singing was not so much the exercise of an artistic function as the natural means of expression towards the world. This relationship involving the mechanics of making music is common enough among the best instrumentalists, but certainly no singer since Bessie Smith could be said to need to sing as desperately as Billie Holiday. The casual effects she threw off would be psychological masterstrokes had they been thought out and planned ahead. As it was, they remained emphatic triumphs of intuition.”
He ends the essay with:
“… the normal rules applied to her no more at the end of her life than they had in the beginning. Whatever shortcomings there might now be in her breathing, her range and her pronunciation, she had retained, because it was a very real part of her personality, this unfailing ability to wrest out of every lyric the last drop of significance, and even to insert her own where the lyricist had failed to include it. As this was the very core of her art, the last recordings overcame their own technical limitations in a miraculous way.”
That is beautiful. My only complaint about the essay is that he doesn’t analyse some of her most famous songs such as “Strange Fruit” and “Gloomy Sunday”. Here is a collection of tracks performed by Billie Holiday and Lester Young:
1/ A few days ago I watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s again, probably the 3rd time. My bf had never seen the film before, but knew about the controversy, which I assume most people would—the controversy about Mickey Rooney playing Mr Yunioshi. Put aside the fact that it’s a white actor wearing make-up and prosthetics to play an Asian character as comic relief, which is seen as offensive, it’s just not funny. Was it ever funny, when the film was released in 1961? It’s crude and unnecessary, and doesn’t fit in with the tone of the film. The Yunioshi character was the reason that I could never fully embrace the film. Now, seeing it again, I don’t like it much anymore. Audrey Hepburn is still charming and elegant, the cat is still cute, and Paul’s speech at the end of the film is still poignant, but maybe Breakfast at Tiffany’s is not for repeated viewings. Certain flaws become more obvious, some of the speech sounds expository. Maybe it’s one of those films that should be remembered, as a lovely charming thing, rather than seen again. 2/ Every year I watch about 100 films, some of which are revisits. Some films demand multiple viewings—each time you see something new. Persona, the Mount Everest of film criticism, is an example. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring is another. Or F for Fake. Masterpieces like Sunset Boulevard or Chinatown, which I saw again over the past year, never become boring or outdated. They are perfect. There are films I’ve seen 6-7 times and will still see again: The Godfather, Casablanca, The Silence of the Lambs, The Shawshank Redemption… Some films lose their magic on revisit. I enjoyed re-watching The Phantom of Liberty, which is whimsical and brilliant, but I no longer felt the fun upon my revisit of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie—its charm relied too much on the random unexpectedness, which obviously was no longer there when I knew what was going to happen. Mother the 2nd time around was not as good, which is probably the case for films which rely heavily on the mystery and suspense of solving the case/ finding the murderer, and on the twist. As you watch it again, it no longer has much to keep your interest. That’s why a film like Chinatown still retain its magic on multiple viewings. I don’t watch it for the answers. I watch it for Jack Nicholson’s performance, for the character of Jack Gittes, for the great dialogue—sharp and full of meaning, for the tight structure and pace, and for John Huston and Faye Dunaway. And sometimes, watching a film again, we don’t like it anymore just because we have changed. I just don’t like American Beauty, Edward Scissorhands, or Scarface anymore, though I used to. Our tastes change over time. 3/ A blog is a great place to make note of what I like, and keep track of how I’ve changed over time. In 2015, I listened to Billie Holiday all the time, obsessively, for a long period. Then it passed. Since then, it’s mostly Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone that I listen to. Sometimes Aretha Franklin. Sometimes Etta James. Sometimes Sarah Vaughan. Sometimes I wonder how many artists I like now, I will still like in 30 years, or 50 years. My formative years were the time in Norway—that was when I discovered classic cinema, photography, 19th century literature, Russian literature, and jazz. I reckon that for the rest of my life, these things will always be important to me, especially classic cinema, Russian literature, and jazz; it’s my views on the individual artists that change. Shall I try to predict? Tolstoy, I’m sure, will always be there. He is a giant, not only in Russia but in world literature, and his impact on my life cannot be overstated. Same with Nabokov. With Melville, I’m not sure, but Moby Dick will always be a favourite and an important novel. With Jane Austen, I expect to still respect her in 30 years, or even 50 years, because I already went from disliking her and thinking she was chicklit, to discovering the great depth and sensitivity in her works, but maybe one day I will no longer care about stories of growth, understanding, and self-understanding. We never know. In cinema, I think I will always like Ingmar Bergman and Billy Wilder. I once had a Wong Kar-wai phase, a Martin Scorsese phase, even a Stanley Kubrick phase, but Ingmar Bergman is a director whose films have everything that I think are important about cinema: great cinematography and lighting, striking imagery, creative and haunting use of sound, good editing, great acting and memorable performances, style, depth, personal vision, exploration of relationships and human consciousness, and formal experiments that push the boundaries of cinema. He was also the director that I discovered, and learnt from, during my 3 years at the film school, and who influenced my first short films. It’s also hard to imagine a time when I wouldn’t like Billy Wilder. Is there any other writer-director who writes more memorable dialogue and makes so many great films in such different genres? I love his sharp wit and humour, and the humanity of his films. About music, I know a few people who listen to jazz their whole lives, so I don’t suppose I will stop loving jazz. It’s just hard to say if I will always like John Coltrane, whom I’m focusing on at the moment. But I expect Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald to always be there, on their own or together. I don’t like watching Louis Armstrong—his grin makes me uncomfortable, but I can listen to him all day. People talk about his optimism, which isn’t wrong for songs such as “What a Wonderful World”, but there’s nothing so haunting like the pain in his performance of “Black and Blue”. Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald on their own are fantastic. Together, they’re recognised as the greatest duets in jazz. Her velvety voice softens his edges. My favourite of theirs is “Summertime”. Well, let’s see how things turn out.
This version is perfect: The original's sung by Gwen Verdon in Damn Yankees. Other renditions include Ella Fitzgerald, Janice Hagan, Della Reese, Carmen McCrae, Natacha Atlas, etc. ___________________________________________________ Generally speaking I'm not really fond of Sarah Vaughan's singing; at least after listening to a dozen songs, I hardly feel anything, albeit recognising her talent, and don't really warm to her as to Nina Simone or Billie Holiday. However, her rendition of "Whatever Lola Wants" is the best, and the only one that seems right. She sounds sexy, seductive and decisive. Her performance has everything needed for this particular song: the confidence that she's in full control of herself and "little man", the decisiveness heard in the way she enunciates each word without "dragging" until lines such as "Recline yourself, resign yourself, you're through" and "You're no exception to the rule/ I'm irresistible you fool/ Give in", when her drawl sounds playful and seductive... Other singers sound either too soft, too light, too nice or simply not foxy. It's not only the way one sings but also the kind of voice that matters. Can you imagine Billie Holiday singing this? She's the one that is tormented, abandoned, abused, bereaved. Even when she sings playfully, her voice is thin and frail. Nina Simone? This woman has spirit and can be forceful, and she sure is hypnotic, but her deep, man-like voice doesn't have that inviting, enticing quality for Lola. Regarding Ella Fitzgerald, her pure, sweet, silvery voice is, I think, unsuitable. Gwen Verdon's version is just... odd. I'm not even talking about the video yet. Your thoughts?
In the previous post I shared the wonderful version by Ella Fitzgerald. Here is Lady Day's performance: My 1st reaction was being appalled. At the moment I'm slightly confused, but it now appears to me that perhaps Billie Holiday's rendition isn't meant to be what I thought it wasn't. Let's talk again about "Love Me or Leave Me"- the lyrics being almost the same (except for an extra stanza at the beginning of Billie Holiday's version), Billie Holiday and Nina Simone perform it differently and ultimately say different things. The former, by singing it slowly and with agony and "dragging" some notes, focuses on the torment of uncertainty; the latter, with that bravado and quick tempo, instead asserts her sense of self, her independence, and refuses to accept the man's behaviour and the indefiniteness of their relationship, in a sense similar to Doris Day's "Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps". Now let's talk about "Lover, Come Back to Me": The words are "Lover, come back to me", but she doesn't sound like she means it at all. Jazz, we know, is a performer's art rather than a composer's art- as a singer Billie Holiday cannot change the lyrics, but within the constraint she's free to choose the way to sing it, and sings it playfully, ironically rather than seriously, sincerely, sadly. In spirit it's more like "Baby, I Don't Cry Over You", also by Billie Holiday. That undermines the sadness and longing in the lyrics. Instead, she's playing with it, mocking it. Go back to "How Deep Is the Ocean". Sung by Ella Fitzgerald, it's a beautiful, romantic love song. Like anyone can fall in love with Lady Ella. Hear how her voice flies, or flows, with the music. When Billie sings it, however, she sings with that kind of abruptness and lack of deep feeling that sounds like questioning and at the same time makes all the comparisons seem like a laundry list, and thus the whole song becomes shallow, commonplace, banal.
The coolest thing about jazz is that it's a performer's art more/rather than a composer's art, and each singer performs a song in a different way. Completely different, unrecognisable. Over the past few days I've listened several times to Nina Simone's version, which is very good. Then I listened to Billie Holiday. And it sounds like a Billie Holiday song. Like her other sad songs, this one feels personal and uniquely her own, as she brings into the performance her own pain and insecurities and doubts, and sings like she's moaning and crying and lamenting. Whose voice can go as far as Billie's in conveying, expressing such agony. And it feels just right. Just perfect. As though that's exactly the way to sing it. As though there's no other way to render it. Not that I turn my back on Nina. Those thoughts appear only whilst I'm listening to Billie Holiday. These 2 singers have different approaches to the song, in terms of tone, tempo... Besides, though it's hard to say why, I feel like in Billie Holiday's performance the most important part is:
"Love me or leave me Or let me be lonely You won't believe me I love you only I'd rather be lonely Then happy with somebody else You might find the night time The right time for kissing But night time is my time For just reminiscing Regretting Instead of forgetting with somebody else"
In Nina Simone's performance, on the other hand, it is:
"There'll be no one Unless that someone is you I intend to be independently blue I want your love but I don't want to borrow To have it today and give back tomorrow Your love is my love, there's no love for nobody else"
That is, I think they ultimately don't say the same thing. May even be opposing. And strangely, both renditions work. Beautifully.
PS: Besides Peggy Lee's and Doris Day's, I've also listened to Ella Fitzgerald's take on this song. She may be the Queen of Jazz, but in my opinion she loses here. That equanimity of her singing is wonderful in many other songs, but Billie Holiday beats her in this case (as Nina Simone beats her when it comes to "My Man's Gone Now").
