Personnel
| "Your Mother's Son-In-Law" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Billie Holiday with the Benny Goodman Orchestra | ||||
| B-side | "Tappin' the Barrel" | |||
| Released | 1933 | |||
| Recorded | 27 November 1933 | |||
| Genre | Jazz | |||
| Label | Columbia COL 2856-D [1] | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Alberta Nichols and Mann Holiner | |||
| Producer(s) | John Hammond | |||
| Billie Holiday with the Benny Goodman Orchestra singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"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 (equivalent to $733in 2021) for her performance. [2]
Holiday was initially nervous as she prepared to make her first recording. The singer Ethel Waters was present in the studio, which further increased her anxiousness. [2] Waters had recorded in the same studio earlier in the day with the same band. [3] Holiday was also intimidated by the presence of the famous vaudevillian Buck Washington who played the piano on the recording. Buck encouraged her to sing, telling her that she wouldn't want "all these people" to think that she was a 'square'. [4] The song was recorded in a key that Holiday was uncomfortable with and at a faster pace than she wanted at Goodman's behest. [2] Holiday's biographer John Szwed describes the arrangement as "busy" and "too fast". [3] Szwed wrote that the arrangement "pitched her voice so high that it forced her to virtually shout over the band". [3]
In his book Texan Jazz, Dave Oliphant noted that on the song Holiday was already utilising her noted "quavering drop" at the end of words which was possibly adapted from the trumpet stylings of Louis Armstrong and began words with a "gruffness" to lend her vocal lines forcefulness and personality. [5] Oliphant highlights Jack Teagarden's trombone solo on the song, noting that it shares with Holiday's vocal "some of the same exuberance in the face of the wistful and (even inappropriate lyrics)". [5] Oliphant praises Benny Goodman's clarinet solo as that of a "consummate swing artist". [5]
The song later appeared in Lew Leslie's revue Blackbirds of 1934. [3]
In a 1956 interview with Willis Conover for Voice of America's Jazz Hour, Holiday claimed that she was 14 years old at the time of the recording (she was actually eighteen) and that the song "sounds like I was doing comedy" as "my voice sounds so funny and high". [4]
The lyrics of the song reference the opera singer Jules Bledsoe and the actor and singer George Jessel, popular musical artists at the time of the recording. [6]
Billie Holiday was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.
Benjamin David Goodman was an American clarinetist and bandleader known as the "King of Swing".
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and dominated jazz in the early 1940s when swing was most popular. The term "big band" is also used to describe a genre of music, although this was not the only style of music played by big bands.
Weldon Leo "Jack" Teagarden was an American jazz trombonist and singer. According to critic Scott Yannow of Allmusic, Teagarden was the preeminent American jazz trombone player before the bebop era of the 1940s and "one of the best jazz singers too". Teagarden's early career was as a sideman with the likes of Paul Whiteman and lifelong friend Louis Armstrong.
Irving Milfred Mole, known professionally as Miff Mole was an American jazz trombonist and band leader. He is generally considered one of the greatest jazz trombonists and credited with creating "the first distinctive and influential solo jazz trombone style."
Theodore Shaw Wilson was an American jazz pianist. Described by critic Scott Yanow as "the definitive swing pianist", Wilson had a sophisticated, elegant style. His work was featured on the records of many of the biggest names in jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald. With Goodman, he was one of the first black musicians to appear prominently with white musicians. In addition to his extensive work as a sideman, Wilson also led his own groups and recording sessions from the late 1920s to the 1980s.
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 last released in her lifetime. The original album was produced by Irving Townsend and engineered by Fred Plaut.
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.
Michael Andrew "Peanuts" Hucko was an American big band musician. His primary instrument was the clarinet, but he sometimes played saxophone.
James Dugald "Jimmy" McPartland was an American cornetist. He worked with Eddie Condon, Art Hodes, Gene Krupa, Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, and Tommy Dorsey, often leading his own bands. He was married to pianist Marian McPartland.
"I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues" is a popular song with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by Ted Koehler, published in 1932 for the Broadway show Earl Carroll's Vanities (1932). The song has become a jazz and blues standard. Popular recordings in 1933 and 1934 were those by Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman.
Benny Morton was an American jazz trombonist, most associated with the swing genre.
The Charleston Chasers was a studio recording ensemble that recorded music on Columbia Records between 1925 and 1931. They recorded early versions of songs such as "After You've Gone", "Ain't Misbehavin'", and "My Melancholy Baby". Their 1931 recording of "Basin Street Blues" featured Benny Goodman, who stated that it was the first time that he was able to show his own musical personality on record.
Ernesto Caceres was an American jazz saxophonist born in Rockport, Texas. He was a member of the Glenn Miller Orchestra from 1940–1942.
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.
Last Recording is 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.
The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz is a six-LP box set released in 1973 by the Smithsonian Institution. Compiled by jazz critic, scholar, and historian Martin Williams, the album included tracks from over a dozen record labels spanning several decades and genres of American jazz, from ragtime and big band to post-bop and free jazz.
"This Year's Kisses" is a popular song written in 1936 by Irving Berlin for the musical film On the Avenue (1937) and introduced by Alice Faye. Popular recordings in 1937 were by Benny Goodman, Hal Kemp, Shep Fields and by Teddy Wilson with Billie Holiday.
"Gimme a Pigfoot" is a 1933 song written by Wesley Wilson, probably with Coot Grant, his wife, though she is not usually credited on record labels. It was first recorded by Bessie Smith, and versions have been released by many other artists. It is sometimes listed as "Gimme a Pigfoot ".
