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Music CD - Billie Holiday: Lady in Autumn: The Best of the Verve Years
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Music CD: Lady in Autumn: The Best of the Verve Years
Artist: Billie Holiday
List Price: $22.98
Our Price: $14.99
Your Save: $ 7.99 ( 35% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Polygram Records
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Tracks:
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1. Body & Soul
2. Strange Fruit
3. Trav'lin Light
4. All Of Me
5. (There Is) No Greater Love
6. I Cover The Waterfront
7. These Foolish Things (Remind Me Of You)
8. Tenderly
9. Autumn In New York
10. My Man
11. Stormy Weather
12. Yesterdays
13. (I Got A Man, Crazy For Me) He's Funny That Way
14. What A Little Moonlight Can Do
15. I Cried For You (Now It's Your Turn To Cry Over Me)
16. Too Marvelous For Words
17. I Wished On The Moon
18. I Don't Want To Cry Anymore
19. Prelude To A Kiss
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0042284943420
Label: Polygram Records
Manufacturer: Polygram Records
Number Of Discs: 2
Publisher: Polygram Records
Release Date: 1991-10-22
Studio: Polygram Records
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Mellow and Aged to Perfection
Comment: The title "Lady in Autumn" says it all, as this is Lady Day at her mature best. "Autumn" picks up following Holiday's departure from Decca Records and serves as a sampler of her Verve Years, mixing live tracks with studio recordings. This particular box set throws in live recordings from the late 1940s through her studio work right up until the time of her passing in 1959. As usual Holiday tackles a variety of songs from the Great American Songbook, all treated with her vocal prowess and naked emotion. Holiday in unafraid of poaching songs others may have owned such as Lena Horne's "Stormy Weather" and her delivery runs the gamut of emotions from wistful sadness, to savage beauty, to a warm embrace. "Autumn" is hardly the definitive collection of her Verve Years, but it does showcase how phenomenal a talent she was as a vocalist even as her life was coming apart.
Those interested in comparing Lady Day's Decca and Verve Years can compare a number of tracks such as "God Bless the Child," "Lover Man," and others to see what they think. Some may feel she was burning out towards the end but for me she shows an intense mellowness and spark still showing a depth and warmth unimaginable on tracks such as "Stars Fell on Alabama," "April in Paris" and others. "Autumn" is hardly the best of the Verve Years, nor is it terribly complete, yet it is a nice starting point for those recordings. If I had to chose a starting point for Billie Holiday during her Verve Years this would be the logical starting point.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Stormy Weather
Comment: The accompanied booklet said that in technical terms, "her post-war singing has been dismised by many critics." While her voice may have become more harsh, her emotional depth is greater. She sounds to me how I always expected her to sound. My favorite is Stormy Weather. I can't get enough. This one song is the reason I bought the whole set, and it was well worth it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very Good, Very Jazz, Very Ballady, among her best
Comment: This selection of her post war work for Verve is among Billie Holiday's Best work. Instead of looking at Holiday as a personal crsisi in process, or as unblemished idol who was always good, it is interesting to look at this selection in regard to where she was as a developing artist.
My opinion is that along with some of the live shots from concerts at the time, this is her last good work because Verve really packaged her as a JAZZ SINGER PLAYING IN A TOTAL jazz package. Unlike some of the Verve recordings of some of the old stars of Swing in the 1940s and the early 1950s, these Holiday recording surrounded Billie with great Jazz musicians like Ben Webster, and eschews either Billie's unfortunate attempts in the early 40s to become a cabaret chanteuse, or later attempt to put over Billie as a pop or R & B singer.
It's the Jazziness, the swing, and the manipulation of the diction that bop and swing and entrance you here. She no longer has the great voice and the raucous swing she possessed as a woman in her twenties in the 1930s. Heroin and hard living had clearly had their effect on her voice and outlook. However, she conquers these sides with a superior sense of swing and attitude. She does that in distinction to her other work because Verve provided a great group of jazz musicians, real jazz arrangements and trusted in Billie.
At the same time, there is a more developed harmonic and rhythmic take here and a great ability to put depth into ballads here.
This is altogether different than the prewar stuff. The prewar stuff bounces and raves and dances, whereas this is jivy, thoughtful, and gracefully swinging, more what you would listen to with a good Scotch than a good beer.
Customer Rating:
Summary: We need a remastered version Verve
Comment: This is more than a decade old, and I dont like the sound very much. Verve should really release these tracks in a new compilation with better sound. I prefer the early Billie Holiday, and to me she reached her peak at her last sessions for Columbia. I'd strongly recommend to anyone just getting into Bilie to check the Columbia/Legacy stuff first. This is more difficult to appreciate, but stil is great music. Billie is the best jazz singer that ever lived, period.
Customer Rating:
Summary: GOD BLESS HER SOUL !!!
Comment: For many years now, there's been going on a "strange" comparison between Billie's two periods : before and after her time in prison.... The explanation is very simple. You don't buy Billie's records in order to HEAR them, but to FEEL them !!!! It wasn't her technical capabilities in singing that made the Lady famous. It was her emotions, her strength at heart, her willingness to overcome all the problems she had with her private life. That's what you get if you purchase the "Lady in Autumn" CD. You get a Great Lady that stands up with pride, and still manages to keep a high level of quality at her work. It's harder to remain at the top, than getting there at the first place. And Billie stood at the top for a very long time !!!!!
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Editorial Reviews:
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The received wisdom on the tragic torch singer's later work--of these 35 tracks, six were recorded in 1946 and '47, and the rest in the '50s--is that her interpretive skill made up for the collapse of her voice. In fact, the serious cracks in her pitch don't appear until the second disc of this set, and it doesn't approach the febrile croak of Lady in Satin until the END. But she relies on a handful of vocal tricks, and some numbers that had been in her repertoire for ages, to approximate the glory that her voice once was. At times, though, the results are lovely and heartbroken rather than saddening, especially with the simpatico musical backing she got in these sessions. --Douglas Wolk
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