Billie Holiday – Solitude
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RARITY - Sealed
Vocals – Billie Holiday
Piano – Oscar Peterson
Bass – Ray Brown
Drums – Alvin Stoller
Drums – J.C. Heard
Guitar – Barney Kessel
Saxophone – Flip Phillips
Trumpet – Charlie Shavers
Written by Brooks Bowman (A1), Richard Rodgers (A2), J. Fred Coots (A3), Dizzy Gillepsie (A3), Louis Alter (A4), Cole Porter (A5, B4), Harry Link (A6), Jack Strachey (A6), Al Dubin (B1), Harry Warren (B1), Duke Ellington (B2), Harold Adamson (B3), Burton Lane (B3), Eddie DeLange (B5), Will Hudson (B5), Irving Mills (B5), Walter Cross (B6), Jack Lawrence (B6)
1LP, standard sleeve
Original Master Tape : YES
Heavy Press : 180g
Record color : black
Speed : 33RPM
Size : 12”
Stereo
Studio
Record Press : Pallas
Label : Speakers Corner
Original Label : Clef Records
Recorded March and April 1952 in Los Angeles
Produced by Norman Granz
Photography by Alex De Paola
Originally released in 1956
Reissued in 2011
Tracks :
Side A:
1. East Of The Sun (West Of The Moon)
2. Blue Moon
3. You Go To My Head
4. You Turned The Tables On Me
5. Easy To Love
6. These Foolish Things (Remind Me Of You)
Side B:
1. I Only Have Eyes For You
2. Solitude
3. Everything I Have Is Yours
4. Love For Sale
5. Moonglow
6. Tenderly
Reviews :
"Billie Holiday's first recordings for Norman Granz' Clef Records present a vocalist truly at the top of her craft, although she would begin a rapid decline soon thereafter. This 1952 recording (originally issued as a 10" LP, Billie Holiday Sings) places Holiday in front of small piano and tenor saxophone-led groups including jazz luminaries such as Oscar Peterson and Charlie Shavers, where her gentle phrasing sets the tone for the sessions, evoking lazy evenings and dreamy afternoons. The alcoholism and heroin use that would be her downfall by the end of this decade seems to be almost unfathomable during these recordings since Holiday is in as fine a voice as her work in the '30s, and the musical environment seems ideal for these slow torch songs. Solitude runs as the common theme throughout these 16 tracks; the idle breathiness of "These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)" finds the vocalist casually reminiscing, and Barney Kessel's warm guitar lines frame the title track beautifully. Several of Holiday's best-known recordings came from this session, including outstanding versions of "I Only Have Eyes for You" and a darkly emotional "Love for Sale," making this album far and away the best work of her later years, and certainly a noteworthy moment of her entire caree." AllMusic review by Zac Johnson
"Produced by Norman Granz and featuring a first-class line-up, this all-ballads album – the singer's first recording for Granz's Clef Records, and released in 1952 – contains some remarkable things. Prefaced by a delightful introduction by guitarist Kessel, on ‘Solitude’ Holiday communicates the essence of a song as being the bearer of a deep emotion, not simply a melodic line to negotiate and decorate, an intensity of feeling which she herself so admired in the vocal expression of one of her touchstones, Bessie Smith. Holiday's genius for rhythmic displacement comes strongly to the fore in songs such as ‘These Foolish Things’ and ‘East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)’, illustrating that inimitable way in which she draws out a phrase to allow each word to detonate its own emotional charge. Released the following year on Clef Records and similarly produced by Granz, An Evening with Billie Holiday is included here in its entirety as a bonus album and is another front-rank recommendation, not least for a standout interpretation of one of Holiday's signature songs, ‘My Man’, plus Oscar Peterson's dazzlingly effervescent solo on ‘Lover Come Back To Me’." Jazz Wise review by Peter Quinn.
Rating :
AllMusic : 3 / 5 ; Discogs : 4.68 / 5