From the Vault: Billie Holiday and the Swing Song Tradition

by Phil Schaap

and Ben Young with Matt Herman transcribed and edited for clarity by Ale Díaz-Pizarro

The following article appeared originally in the WKCR Billie Holiday Festival Handbook, a souvenir from the 300-hour marathon of Billie Holiday between April 1-15, 2005. The first section has been left untouched as originally published, while the second and third sections have been slightly abridged and edited for clarity.

Billie Holiday, whose timbre and range lacked the awe-inspiring elements expected in great singers, is, nevertheless, the Jazz vocalist. The emotional power of this definitive Jazz singer also reaches the hearts of many listeners who appreciate her alone among Jazz performers.

Billie Holiday, or “Lady Day” as she was known, was born Elinore Harris (or Eleanora or Fagan: Billie’s mother used both Harris and Fagan as her surname) on April 7, 1915 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Eleanora selected “Billie” because she admired a motion picture star named Billie Dove. Lady Day preferred to use her father’s surname, Holiday, though Clarence Holiday never married Sadie Harris Fagan Gough, Billie’s mother. Clarence Holiday was a Jazz musician who played banjo, then switched to guitar. He played in the leading big band of early Jazz, the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Sadie Harris Fagan did not marry Billie’s biological father, but Sadie did marry a man named Gough, and young Billie Holiday was known as Eleanora Gough. The Holidays, Fagans, Harrises, and Goughs were actually from Baltimore where Billie Holiday was raised.

Young Lady Day listened to the earliest Jazz records. Her favorite was Louis Armstrong, and his singing is the root of her style. Billie also named Bessie Smith as an influence. She certainly listened to an early Bessie Smith record, Columbia A3898 [A-side: “Tain't Nobody's Biz-Ness If I Do;” B-side: “Keeps On A-Rainin'”], a lot. Still, Bessie’s power, centered in The Blues, is less obvious in Lady’s style than Satchmo’s. Bessie Smith and The Blues were synthesized by Billie Holiday; Louis Armstrong is the model. One can not listen to 1920s Ethel Waters recordings without hearing that “Sweet Mama Stringbean” also had a great impact on Lady Day. Billie Holiday may not have acknowledged it because the two women did not get along.

By the early 1930s, Billie was singing professionally in New York City. Her Jazz concept was remarkably relaxed, and she was in the forefront of the rhythmic revolutionaries of The Swing Era who elasticized Jazz’s beat. Holiday articulates ‘3’ against ‘2’ differently from Louis Armstrong and the New Orleans shuffle. Her own rhythmic secret is discernible in her quarter-note triplets. Billie’s associate Lester Young’s use of eighth-notes and eighthnote triplets demonstrates their similarity, and that they’re different.

Billie Holiday was heard by talent scout and producer John Hammond, who hired her in 1935 to make a series of records that changed the way a song’s lyrics were presented in Jazz. Lady Day’s delivery of the vocal was part of a string of solos, which were otherwise played by instrumentalists, in a miniature jam now known as The Swing Song Tradition. These records helped make Billie Holiday a star, and she soon embarked on a career as a cabaret singer. An early illustration would be Lady Day’s headlining at the Café Society’s grand opening in January 1939. Previously, she had often sung in big bands such as Fletcher

Henderson’s (1936), Count Basie’s (1937-38), and Artie Shaw’s (1938). Now, a smaller band backed her vocals: whether at posh clubs, Jazz joints, or in concert, the accompaniment was small, often just a pianist.

Billie Holiday, celebrity chanteuse, stopped making discs in the style of The Swing Song Tradition, but all of her records were Jazz classics even when devoid of instrumental Jazz improvisations or even Jazz musicians. This was due to Lady Day’s swing and inventions. Her biggest hit records came during this period, highlighted by “Lover Man” in 1944. Even when Lady Day appeared with former colleagues such as Lester Young or in jam-session settings such as Jazz at the Philharmonic, the performance was all about her. She was the soloist, the only soloist. In 1946, Billie Holiday debuted at Carnegie Hall and appeared in a Hollywood motion picture with Louis Armstrong.

At this zenith of superstardom, Billie Holiday’s heroin addiction caught up with her. Her fame continued but now included notoriety with sordid details of drug busts and missed engagements. Pockets of consistent performance occurred in her later years and most of her last records happily returned her to The Swing Song Tradition. But Lady Day never beat substance abuse or law enforcement. Billie Holiday died on July 17, 1959, at age 44.

Understanding Billie Holiday’s recorded career, as with any performer, requires the listener to understand the nature of a formal record date and a commercial release. Billie Holiday was recorded at many gigs and off the air informally; she never expected these recordings to be widely heard. When she went into the studio, however, she hoped to be listened to by millions.

Lady Day’s recording debut was a studio recording for commercial release done with Benny Goodman in 1933. For the next nine years virtually all of her recordings were made for one company, today known as SonyBMG. The first three years were combos—The Swing Song Tradition. Starting in the fall of 1938, most of the records document her switch from informal combos to back-up bands and, after January 1939, she no longer recorded as a sidewoman. These mid-sized ensemble backups continued until 1942.

In 1939, Billie Holiday—now a pop star— wanted to record the song “Strange Fruit” as a protest against racism. Columbia Records was too scared to risk the wrath of a segregated America by recording it. Still, they didn’t want to alienate their diva. Billie Holiday was allowed a one-time release from her exclusive contract to record “Strange Fruit” for the allJazz label, Commodore Records. Following the practice of the day, Commodore recorded four tunes to make a full date, [which] was a union regulation.

Between July 31, 1942 and 1944, [the record labels and the musicians’ union] had no agreement, and commercial recording, not just for Billie Holiday, was halted. Billie Holiday was free to switch labels after this strike and on March 25, 1944 made for Commodore her first records after the settlement. Commodore was run by Milt Gabler. He had helped Billie to broker her one-time release from Columbia to record “Strange Fruit” in 1939. Gabler became an executive with Decca Records and signed Billie Holiday to Decca later in 1944.

Decca Records allowed, and probably preferred, Billie Holiday to record as a cabaret star with discreet backgrounds that underutilized—often in the extreme—any Jazz instrumental solo talent that was present. It is known, however, that Billie Holiday enjoyed these records and desired the backdrop. They also sold, in BIG numbers. All of Billie Holiday’s recordings for commercial release between 1944 and 1950 were done for Decca. It is during these years that the number of informal recordings of Billie Holiday expanded exponentially. In her lifetime, however, the Decca records were the ones that were known.

Decca Records, in part due to Billie’s drug problems and in part due to the beginning of Jazz’s descent from the pop market, chose not to re-sign Billie Holiday. She made only one session over the next two years: for Aladdin, on April 29, 1951, [with] guitarist Tiny Grimes. Grimes had directed Billie’s group many times in the mid-1940s. Their 1951 reunion goes unexplained.

Then in 1952, Billie Holiday signed with Norman Granz, the founder of Jazz at the Philharmonic, [who] signed [her] to an exclusive contract. In a decision nearly as insightful as his idea to have Ella Fitzgerald record all the evergreens from the American popular songbook’s master composers, Granz returned Billie Holiday to Jazz accompaniment and The Swing Song Tradition. She often thrived on the concept, as she once again jammed tunes with fellow improvisers. Even when her drug habits and personal problems make her weakness audible, the fun inherent in The Swing Song Tradition approach still seems present. Granz, nevertheless, could see that Billie Holiday, whose lifestyle often created logistical problems, was now often physically incapable even when she was on time and willing to perform. During 1957, he elected not to re-sign her.

By now many, many Billie Holiday live appearances were being recorded, often to high audio standards. Even while she was alive, a few of them were issued. Recordings of this type—in good, bad, and indifferent sound— now dwarf the number of formal recordings for commercial release.

Her brief time was just about over. The last records are anomalies. One, Lady in Satin, is considered a unique masterpiece in her recorded career. Both of her last albums found arranger Ray Ellis as her music director. Ellis was a Jazz musician who became an arranger at the end of the big band days. Wisely, it was decided that she would use repertoire she had never recorded. It clicked. Even listeners who couldn’t bear to hear the decaying, limited voice of Billie Holiday’s later years admired Lady in Satin. Billie Holiday, however, didn’t have much left when she tried to follow it up for MGM in March 1959, again with Ray Ellis. She died a month after that record’s release.

Many Jazz artists’ recordings are difficult to trace and once found might provide an incomplete musical picture of the artist. Billie Holiday’s recordings, her productions under contract to various record companies, are unusual in that they offer a fair reading of her career, provide a clear illustration of her music, and are easy to outline.

At the start of the Swing Era, producer John Hammond obtained an assignment from Brunswick Records: having a singer backed by a Jazz combo make records of mostly new pop songs, largely for the jukebox trade. Hammond immediately chose pianist Teddy Wilson to direct these combos. Brainstorming with Wilson, Hammond mapped out a vision of a complete Jazz performance—the singing would be Jazz, too. Teddy Wilson understood and concurred. They each selected an obscure singer who might make the idea work. Teddy’s choice for a vocalist was the (still) obscure

Beverly “Baby” White. John Hammond told him, “Oh, no: the singer has to be Billie Holiday!” Lady Day not only helped these men put over their innovation; Billie Holiday brought The Swing Song Tradition to its zenith at its inception.

The Swing Song Tradition turns the melody and the lyric of a song into golden opportunities for Jazz soloing. The essential ingredient is the vocal. The delivery of the song’s words comes within a string of instrumental Jazz solos, and the singing is one of those solos. In The Swing Song Tradition, however, the melody is often first stated instrumentally, and that too is a Jazz solo. On The Swing Song Tradition bandstand, to be chosen to play the melody is to get the plum assignment.

That Jazz now features singing seems so logical, but when Jazz was young, most vocalists seemed old-fashioned. It was almost as if the Jazz stopped when the singing started. The Swing Song Tradition was the answer to the problem. The singer became an equal in the improvising, delivering her/his solo when it was time for the lyric.

The Swing Song Tradition created all sorts of devices to transform a tune into a perfect Jazz miniature. One instrumentalist played the melody, another would play an obbligato behind the singer. Still other instrumentalists improvised variations on the theme. These solos came after the melody statement but could occur either before or after the vocal (or both). The problem was a limitation in the playing duration of records: singles were supposed to last less than three minutes. This demanded brevity in the ad-libbed instrumental solos, and one solution was the split chorus. Particularly when the tempo was slow, a single chorus of improvisation could feature as many as four individual soloists. This created musical dialogue among the players, another highlight of The Swing Song Tradition. Often at the end of a tune, a free-for-all finale would simulate a jam session or even a Dixieland band.

The first Swing Song Tradition records [...] sold well, and Billie Holiday was signed to her own record contract. The concept was modified for the Billie Holiday Vocalions (July 10, 1936–September 15, 1938). On Holiday’s dates, singing was heard twice. Billie’s first vocal appearance replaced the instrumental statement of the melody. She would sing again after the others had soloed. Since a Jazz vocal is the essential ingredient in The Swing Song Tradition, few felt that the system was marred. Who could complain about Billie Holiday taking a second helping?

Lady Day returns to 89.9FM for 24 hours on Sunday, April 7th, for what would have been her 109th birthday. Tune in all day or stream at wkcr.org for one of WKCR’s most beloved yearly celebrations.