Billie Holiday: Strange Fruit

• 2008

• Watchlist

Performance footage of Billie Holiday may admittedly be scant, but this issue compiles into a single release song cuts from some of Holiday's live filmed performances that are still extant. Concerts from which the compilation draws include: an August 19, 1950 gig with Count Basie and his orchestra, an August 13, 1956 set with pianist Corky Hale and his trio; a July 10, 1958 set, filmed in Newark, in which Holiday is backed up by tenor saxophonist Georgie Auld, bassist Vinnie Burke, pianist Mal Waldron and others; and a November 1958 Parisian set where Holiday is accompanied by Waldron and bassist Michel Gaudry. The program wraps with two selections from a February 1959 set featuring Mal Waldron and Peter Knight's orchestra, and then jumps back to Manhattan in December 1957 for one track performed with such artists as Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young and others.