Eleanora fagan gough biography of william hill
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BiographiesBillie Holiday
(Elinore Harris [Geburtsname]; Eleanora Fagan [Taufname]; Lady Day [Spitzname]; Eleonora McKay [Ehename])
born on 7 April 1915 in Philadelphia
died on 17 July 1959 in New York City
American Jazz singer
Biography • Quotes • Weblinks • Literature & Sources
Biography
Billie Holiday overcame an impoverished and abusive childhood to become the definitive jazz singer of the 1930’s and 40’s. Although she lacked any formal musical training she had an uncanny ability to “hear” rhythms, syncopations and cadences and developed her own unique improvisational style, influencing the development of jazz and pop music for decades to komma with the mesmerizing emotional intensity of her singing. Inspired as a child by recordings of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith, she eventually sang with virtually all the greats of the Swing era: Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Art Tatum, Teddy Williams and Benny Goodman among many others. Frank Sinatr
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Billie Holiday: Profile of an Upper West Sider
If you visited the old Tower Records on West 66th Street in 1997 or 1998, chances are you heard the unforgettable voice of Billie Holiday crooning on repeat from the vocals section just atop the long escalator that overlooked the adjacent Barnes & Noble. Her voice was honest and disarming and bolstered by the brassiness of the instruments playing behind her. Her musical repertoire reverberated off the two-story tall glass windows just above Broadway for hours on end.
Billie Holiday was jazz royalty. A legend. An incredible talent. Courageous and hard to forget. An Upper West Sider, she was an incredible pioneering woman who had virtually everything working against her but managed to reach the peak of success as a black woman during a time when lynchings and government sanctioned segregation were commonplace.
Like so many people who have only an abundance of disadvantage, Holiday was never supposed to succeed. She was never s
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. Orchestra leader Ray Ellis poses with Holiday in 1958. Holiday made her final studio recording with Ellis’ orchestra the following year.
Billie Holiday is generally regarded by knowledgeable jazz enthusiasts to be the greatest female singer in jazz, although a novice listener may at first find this hard to understand. Holiday had a small voice, did not belt out songs the way the blues queens before her had, lacked the musicality of Ella Fitzgerald, and, unlike Ella, never scatted in her singing. Recordings from late in her career reveal a thin, almost toneless voice with a deceptively conversational style. Yet, her innovative way with behind-the-beat phrasing was ahead of its time – and in step with the laconic tenor sax of Lester Young. And it was Young – known within jazz circles as “The Prez” – who gave her the name, “Lady Day,” which Bi