Search - Billie Holiday :: Complete Verve Studio Master Takes

I Second the Horrible Packaging

D. Glassner | West Hollywood, CA United States | 01/29/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Okay, the music is flawless. Nothing needs to be said.



And yes, the packaging is horrible. However, it's not the functionaliy of the packaging the irks me (even though this is also poor). My wife and I are both designers, and nothing about the packaging is aesthetically cohesive. The disc art looks like it can also be used on an XTC or Theivery Corporation album (or maybe it was stolen from one). The photos are very unflattering. All of this would not be such a crime if it wasn't coming from a period and label that wasn't known for classic, trend-setting and influential album covers. It honestly looks as if different people designed parts of the package without seeing what the other was doing.



Oh well, it's going right on my iPod anyway where I'll swap out the art for something nicer. Here is a great hint/trick for fellow iPod jazzers....



Change your encode settings to MONO on anything recorded before 1958. Stereo wasn't used until 1958, and changing the setting to MONO will make the file half the size with 0% loss of quality. (The "automatic" setting in iTunes cannot differentiate mono from stereo, so you need to do this manually.) If your entire iPod is pre-1958, you will get twice as much music on it."

Essential, in a silly box

John Ellis | New York, NY United States | 03/17/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The last phase of Billie Holiday's career is captured here in great sound (the very slight hiss means they didn't take off a layer of sound just to get pristine silent background, a good sign, a mistake Japanese issues often make). With a return to great jazz backup, as in her 30s recordings (arguably the greatest jazz/popular recordings ever made), Holiday isn't in great voice and she sometimes isn't up to the material, which is much better than the material she was handed in the 30s. But that's a rare sometimes, and her take on anything is always interesting. And often great. She completely remakes "Love for Sale" (which was a rather silly risque Porter number til she took it on) or "Solitude", unearthing colors the composers likely didn't realize they'd buried there; much as her daughters Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone would do so often after her. The damage she had done to her instrument and herself, as well as the damage the world inflicted on her, shows and sometimes she is using it and sometimes it is using her. On a few cuts you're listening to a woman in great pain, and it's not art; it becomes voyeurism. In the end, it's an essential collection, and preferable to the fuller complete collection - her false takes in this period aren't useful, as the 30s outtakes were, where nothing she did was the same twice. The packaging is silly, and has nothing to do with her style; the photo on the inside front cover is just ugly, though there is an Aztec quality to it that would be interesting if there was anything Aztec about Holiday. She was also very beautiful and a chameleon (at different times, she looked Chinese, African, patrician, no two photos from different shoots look the same), which highlights her essential nature as an actress. The greatest singing actress, in fact. But the perfumed soap tin box doesn't disguise the unique music inside."

For Holiday Collectors...Check Out the 2 Cd and DVD Collecti

Original Mixed Up-Kid | New York United States | 12/15/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Cut down to 6 discs...from the original 10 collection...these studio sides of Billie from the 1950's is a treasure chest of standards..Arguably,some consider her finest period.

Gone are the alternate takes and live material that comprised much of the hefty 10 box set..the focus is on

the studio sessions with such greats as Ben Webster and Sweets Edison...

Indeed she was a Lady In Autumn in this era but quality throughout on these standards..The phrasing and intonations are special.

Like The Charlie Parker set,this is handomely packaged despite the criticism of the tin box and falling apart of the book etc...

It is not that shoddy...

Add to your collection if you must if you want to go further than the compilation Lady In Autumn from this time period and don't mind not having the alternative sides and live material found elsewhere."