Billie Holiday Billie Holiday Billie Holiday Billie Holiday Billie Holiday

It is a great book that is very interesting. It is not dry and is very detailed in what it says. I would suggest it to anyone interested in Billie Holiday.

Mr. Nicholson's book was, for the most part, a clear and enjoyable read. I respected his dedication to uncovering facts about Billie's birth, childhood, and family. I also enjoyed the careful attention he paid to her musical choices because too many people have thought of Holiday as a woman whose genius was entirely intuitive. Those people have neglected the fact that jazz was (is?) an aural art form, studied by listening just as Western scholars learn by reading. Thus, the analysis of her style and note selection did not bother me... when it got too tedious for my taste, I skipped it. I must applaud Nicholson for stepping on some toes. As a Holiday fanatic, I am used to books and films (including Holiday's autobiography) that leave only a "trace" (to borrow from French philosopher Derrida) of the "real" Billie Holiday. i have come to understand, however, that this trace is, without Holiday's physical presence, all we have of her. Our understadning Holiday requires retelling, re-inventing the story--not merely looking for facts, but being conscious of how we arrange them. Nicholson takes on the Holiday mystique with vigor. Everything from her birth record, to her girlhood rape and addictions to drugs and bad men is scrutinized. Nicholson often uses Holiday's own words (whether ghost-written by William Dufty or not) to de-mystify Lady Day. I appreciate Nicholson's thorough challenges to the legend not because they replace the mystique, but because they add to our "reconstruction" of Billie Holiday. I disagreed rather strongly with his claim that Holiday's artistry was, finally, less than that of Ella Fitzgerald, but I found his extended comparison of the two women useful for further listening. His remarks about Holiday's artistic rut, performing the same 10 songs repeatedly in live concerts during the 1950s, initially struck me as callous. However, I finally concluded that I appreciated this criticism. Nicholson risks sacrilege, but it's a worthy risk. If no one had mentioned that her repertoire became almost petrified, how could we then ask the question of why it became so? Was she under and specific pressures that limed her repertoire, or were their hints of this staleness early in her career? Nicholson's book, by engaging the written documents, musical recordings, and oral narratives of the "real" Billie Holidays, points the way to interesting questions in our interpretation of her art and her life. I highly recommend Nicholson's book. For fans of women jazz singers, Nina Simone's _I Put a Spell on You_ and Leslie Gourse biography of Sarah Vaughan, _Sassy_, are also indispensable.