Billie Holiday

vocals · 1915–1959 · Philadelphia

Strange Fruit (Commodore, April 20, 1939), one of the most intimate voices in jazz.

Contribution to jazz

Billie Holiday made jazz singing an art of intimacy. She sings like an instrumentalist, shifting her phrasing against the beat, without vocal effects. With Strange Fruit, recorded at Commodore on April 20, 1939, she sings a text about lynching, a rare subject on a mainstream record of the time. The lyrics are a poem by Abel Meeropol.

Key dates

• 1915: Born in Philadelphia.
• 1933: First recordings, with Benny Goodman.
• 1937: She sings with Count Basie's orchestra.
• 1939: Strange Fruit, on Commodore.
• 1958: Lady in Satin, on Columbia, with a string orchestra.
• 1959: Died.

How to listen

Do not look for power: the voice is small. Listen to the gap between her line and the tempo, which she lays back or pushes ahead of like a soloist, and to the way she changes color on a single syllable. The recordings of the 1930s show her light and laughing. Those from the end of her life are heavier, barer, and often more moving.

Where to start

• Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans (1947, Easy): A standard sung gently, from the film New Orleans (1947), in which she appears with Louis Armstrong.
• Strange Fruit (1939, Classic): The track that made her famous. Listen to it knowing its subject.
• Lady in Satin (album, 1958, Columbia): Recorded a year before her death: a voice marked by the years, in front of a string orchestra.

Styles

• Vocal jazz, scat, vocalese
• Swing, big bands

Landmark albums

• Lady in Satin (1958, Columbia)

What to hear next

• Lester Young: Her closest partner: she nicknamed him "Prez" and he called her "Lady Day."
• Ella Fitzgerald: The other great voice of swing, more technical, brighter.
• Sarah Vaughan: The voice of bebop, with phrasing that is just as free.
• Abbey Lincoln: An heir to her unadorned singing.

Landmark tracks

• What a Little Moonlight Can Do (1935)
• Strange Fruit (1939)
• Fine and Mellow (1939)
• God Bless the Child (1941)
• All of Me (1941)
• Lover Man (1944)

Cited in 2 radio episodes

• Oct 23, 2025: De Billie Holiday à Raoul Minot... (Culture Club, TSF Jazz, in French)
• Mar 10, 2020: Les cent ans de Boris Vian : Billie Holiday (Émissions spéciales, TSF Jazz, in French)

Sources

• EN : Billie Holiday

Facts checked against these pages (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA). Method and licenses

The editorial sections of this page (how to listen, where to start, landmarks) are written by Jazzency and are being proofread.