Strange Fruit

Billie Holiday · 1939

Context

Recorded in 1939 with trumpeter Frankie Newton's orchestra, this song was recorded thanks to a special arrangement between producer Milt Gabler (Commodore) and Vocalion. It became Billie Holiday's best-selling record and an anthem of the anti-lynching movement. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1978.

In the genealogy of jazz

This track belongs to Vocal jazz, scat, vocalese, Classic blues (women singers). Among the origins and influences of Vocal jazz, scat, vocalese: Classic blues (women singers), Swing, big bands, Bebop (Minton's, Monroe's).

By the same artist

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

Sources

• EN: Strange Fruit
• EN: The Complete Commodore & Decca Masters

Jazzency text written from these pages. Method and licenses