Last Recording | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | July 1959 | |||
Recorded | March 3, 4, & 11, 1959 | |||
Genre | Vocal jazz | |||
Length | 34:58 | |||
Label | MGM | |||
Producer | Ray Ellis | |||
Billie Holiday chronology | ||||
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Alternative cover | ||||
![]() Original cover before album retitled Last Recording after Holiday's death in July 1959 |
Last Recording (MGM Records, 1959) is the final album Billie Holiday recorded. It was originally released during Holiday's lifetime with the title Billie Holiday, and was retitled after her death. It is not to be confused with the 1954 Clef Records album titled Billie Holiday . [1] [2]
After the success of her album, Lady in Satin (1958), Billie Holiday wanted to record another album with arranger Ray Ellis. Ellis had switched from Columbia to MGM, so Billie switched labels also to avoid breaching her contract with Columbia. When she returned to the studio in March 1959, jazz critic and friend of Holiday's Leonard Feather, said Holiday "walked into the studio statuesque and sharp as ever."[ This quote needs a citation ]
When Holiday recorded her previous album Lady in Satin with Ellis, she conveyed to him her desire to “sound like Sinatra”, but at the time was in such poor health from years of difficulty and substance abuse that a nurse sometimes had to help keep her propped up on a high stool as she sang. [3] Billie Holiday was a departure from the stylings of her more string laden previous album, making use of a lighter string orchestra, minus the choir, and more horns, including a saxophone and a more jazz like feeling. It also demanded less fanfare. Songs like "All of You", "'Deed I Do", and "Baby Won't You Please Come Home" have a lighter and happier tempo and do not include strings.
During the time of recording Billie Holiday, Holiday's health was taking its toll. Some say that she did not look like herself at all, and looked like a ghost of what she once was.
In the song "There'll Be Some Changes Made", Holiday replaces the name Jack Benny in the lyric "Even Jack Benny has been changin' his jokes" to Frank Sinatra, her jazz friend.
The album was completed on March 11, 1959. Four days later, Billie Holiday's lifelong friend and music partner Lester Young died on March 15, 1959. She would die four months later on July 17, 1959, at the age of 44.
AllMusic music critic Ron Wynn stated, "In many ways, a sad event... It's poignant in a tragic way." The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings awarded the album three stars, but placed the entire rating in brackets, indicating that the authors had reservations about the album as a whole. [4]
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings | (![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
By 1959, use of hard drugs and alcohol had taken their toll on Holiday's voice. It is evident that her voice had deteriorated since her previous album Lady in Satin. Producer and arranger Ray Ellis said that the producers "accidentally" adjusted the speed at 1/4 pitch faster in the studio making Holiday's voice high pitched in some songs like "You Took Advantage of Me".[ citation needed ]
Billie Holiday was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday made a significant contribution to jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly influenced by jazz instrumentalists, inspired a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.
Lady in Satin is an album by the jazz singer Billie Holiday released in 1958 on Columbia Records, catalogue CL 1157 in mono and CS 8048 in stereo. It is the penultimate album completed by the singer, and the last to be released in her lifetime. Her final album, Last Recording, was recorded in March 1959, and released just after her death. The original album was produced by Irving Townsend and engineered by Fred Plaut.
A Classy Pair is a 1979 studio album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, accompanied by the Count Basie Orchestra, with arrangements by Benny Carter.
The Best Is Yet to Come is a 1982 studio album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, accompanied by a studio orchestra arranged and conducted by Nelson Riddle.
Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday at Newport is a 1958 live album by Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, recorded at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival.
Dear Ella is a 1997 studio album by Dee Dee Bridgewater, recorded in tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, who had died the previous year.
Claus Ogerman was a German arranger, conductor, and composer best known for his work with Billie Holiday, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra, Bill Evans, Michael Brecker, and Diana Krall.
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Something Wonderful was the second album by the American vocalist Nancy Wilson, it was released in October 1960 by Capitol Records, and arranged by Billy May.
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"But Beautiful" is a popular song with music written by Jimmy Van Heusen, the lyrics by Johnny Burke. The song was published in 1947.
Alvin Stoller was an American jazz drummer. Though he seems to have been largely forgotten, he was held in high regard in the 1940s and 1950s. He was best known for playing drums on both Mitch Miller's recording of "The Yellow Rose of Texas" and Stan Freberg's parody of Miller's recording.
Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia 1933–1944 is a 10-CD box set compiling the complete known studio master recordings, plus alternate takes, of Billie Holiday during the time period indicated, released in 2001 on Columbia/Legacy, CXK 85470. Designed like an album of 78s, the medium in which these recordings initially appeared, the 10.5" × 12" box includes 230 tracks, a 116-page booklet with extensive photos, a song list, discography, essays by Michael Brooks, Gary Giddins, and Farah Jasmine Griffin, and an insert of appreciations for Holiday from a diversity of figures including Tony Bennett, Elvis Costello, Marianne Faithfull, B.B. King, Abbey Lincoln, Jill Scott, and Lucinda Williams. At the 44th Grammy Awards on February 27, 2002, the box set won the Grammy Award for Best Historical Album of the previous year.
"There'll Be Some Changes Made" ("Changes") is a popular song by Benton Overstreet (composer) and Billy Higgins (lyricist). Published in 1921, the song has flourished in several genres, particularly jazz. The song has endured for as many years as a jazz standard. According to the online The Jazz Discography, "Changes" had been recorded 404 times as of May 2018. The song and its record debut were revolutionary, in that the songwriters (Overstreet and Higgins, the original copyright publisher, Harry Herbert Pace, the vocalist to first record it, the owners of Black Swan, the opera singer for whom the label was named, and the musicians on the recording led by Fletcher Henderson, were all African American. The production is identified by historians as a notable part of the Harlem Renaissance.
Lady Sings the Blues is an album by American jazz vocalist Billie Holiday released in December 1956. It was Holiday's last album released on Clef Records; the following year, the label would be absorbed by Verve Records. Lady Sings the Blues was taken from sessions taped during 1954 and 1956. It was released simultaneously with her ghostwritten autobiography of the same name.
An Evening with Billie Holiday is the second 10-inch LP studio album by jazz singer Billie Holiday, released by Clef Records in 1953.
White Gardenia is an album by jazz saxophonist Johnny Griffin with brass and strings which was recorded in 1961 and released on the Riverside label. Intended as a tribute album to jazz singer Billie Holiday, who had died two years earlier, she had sung all of the songs, except for the title track, which is the only original composition by Griffin on the album. The white gardenia was the flower Holiday often wore in her hair. The orchestral arrangements were written by Melba Liston and Norman Simmons.
Shock Treatment is an album by trumpeter Don Ellis recorded in 1968 and released on the Columbia label.
Gardenias for Lady Day is the eighth album by saxophonist James Carter featuring tracks associated with Billie Holiday which was released on the Columbia label in 2003.
"Your Mother's Son-In-Law" is a song written by Alberta Nichols and Mann Holiner that was recorded by Billie Holiday with a band led by Benny Goodman on 27 November 1933. It was Holiday's first recording. It was produced by John Hammond. The song was recorded in three takes, and Holiday was paid $35 for her performance.