Billie Holiday Complete Verve Studio Master Takes CD

Personnel: Billie Holiday (vocals); Freddie Green, Herb Ellis, Kenny Burrell, Barney Kessel, Barry Galbraith, Billy Bauer (guitar); Tony Scott (clarinet); Willie Smith, Benny Carter (alto saxophone); Flip Phillips, Paul Quinichette, Ben Webster, Budd Johnson (tenor saxophone); Harry "Sweets" Edison, Joe Newman , Charlie Shavers (trumpet); Jimmy Cleveland (trombone); Hank Jones , Jimmy Rowles (piano, celesta); Oscar Peterson (piano, organ); Wynton Kelly, Billy Taylor , Bobby Tucker (piano); Joe Benjamin, Joe Mondragon, John Simmons , Milt Hinton, Ray Brown , Red Callender, Red Mitchell, Aaron Bell (double bass); Chico Hamilton, Cozy Cole, Lenny McBrowne, Gus Johnson, Larry Bunker, Alvin Stoller, Osie Johnson, Ed Shaughnessy (drums).
Billie Holiday fans will argue eternally over the relative merits of the different phases of her career. In these arguments Lady Day's work for Verve, which roughly covered the last decade of her life, often gets short shrift. While it cannot be denied that Holiday had lost much of the elasticity and spring in her voice (due in large part to a rough life filled with alcohol and drug abuse), and that the recordings were sometimes weighted too heavily with strings and saccharine arrangements, it is impossible to overlook the exquisite phrasing and raw emotion underscoring many of these performances.
THE COMPLETE VERVE STUDIO MASTER TAKES makes a definitive and compelling case for Holiday's Verve tenure. Packaged in a deep-dish metallic box (which resembles the world's most beautiful lunch pail), THE COMPLETE comprises six CDs, a 60-page booklet filled with rare photographs and superb liner notes, and dazzlingly crisp sound via digital remastering. The musicians on these sessions were some of the finest of the era, and Holiday herself--even with a gift impaired by time and abuse--sings with impeccable artistry, and beautifully enough to break the heart. The set is essential for completists, and is also a great one-stop for those looking to acquaint themselves with Lady Day's later work.
One of the first box sets for completists only, 1993's ten-disc The Complete Billie Holiday on Verve 1945-1959 was considered nearly a necessity by anyone interested in jazz vocals. Verve returned to the catalog 12 years later with a much tighter, much smarter collection: The Complete Verve Studio Master Takes. Encompassing six discs, the set skips the many live performances and the few alternate takes included on the previous box. Overall, the work compares well to her earlier material for Columbia. Although the old familiar cracks rarely appeared in her voice during her Columbia, Decca, and Commodore years, the song selections weren't all gold, and the needs of that era (the 1930s and '40s) dictated that each side end around the three-minute mark. With Verve during the '50s, Holiday recorded nothing but standards in the studio, and indulged in many longer performances that often resulted in relaxed, methodical songs. Aside from Holiday's mastery of vocal jazz as a form, the practice also allowed for some lengthy, perfectly loving solos by musicians including Ben Webster ("Ill Wind") Harry "Sweets" Edison ("I Didn't Know What Time It Was," "Day in, Day Out"), Benny Carter ("I Get a Kick Out of You," "Prelude to a Kiss"), and Charlie Shavers ("I Wished on the Moon"). If the previous "Complete on Verve" set was an expensive bauble that listeners rarely returned to, this "Complete Verve" is a much brighter proposition. (The accordion-like packaging, however, leaves much to be desired.) ~ John Bush