The jazz singer Lady Day

The moniker given by saxophonist Lester Young in the 1930s, “Lady Day” aka Billie Holiday, emerged from an extremely troubled childhood to become one of jazz’s most iconic singers. Known for her distinctive phrasing along with a soulful and sometimes sorrowful voice, Holiday connected to a wide radio audience despite her limited range. Holiday became a jazz singer essentially due to circumstance and necessity. She began singing in local clubs in Harlem at the outset of the Depression, when cleaning floors became too competitive and a club owner felt sorry for the teenager who needed to survive. “Can you sing?” he asked. “Yes!” she responded almost defiantly. Fortunately she listened to Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong as a child and instinctively developed a natural, if untrained style. Then again, her father was purportedly jazz artist Clarence Holiday (her adopted namesake), so something may have been inherited.

.

Holiday was discovered a few years later by producer John Hammond and soon began working with top bands like Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson, Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Artie Shaw. She was one of the first African American female artists to sing for a white orchestra when working with Shaw. However, promoters objected to her color and singing style and she was forced to strike out on her own.  During this period (1940s) Holiday developed her signature style of wearing a gardenia in her hair and tilting her head back. She strung a number of classic hits together including “God Bless the Child” and “Strange Fruit” (about lynching in the south). “Strange Fruit” was particularly controversial and banned by many radio stations, which only aided in making it a hit.  

Many of Billie Holiday’s songs were inspired by a personal life filled with abusive relationships and men, some of whom exposed her to opiates and heroin. Already a heavy drinker, a narcotics arrest in the late 1940s sent her career in a different direction. What followed was an array of troubles ranging from rehab stints to being banned by clubs and venues. Holiday continued to record and perform even as her lifestyle took a toll on her health and voice. More toxic relationships and drug use led to financial and legal problems in the 1950s. She managed however, to create a memorable gritty emotional performance for TV in 1956 and record a critically acclaimed album in 1958. Lady Day died in 1959 at the age of 44 of heart failure, cirrhosis of the liver and complications from heroin addiction. She was actually under arrest for possession of heroin while in her hospital room at the time of her death.  

   

I wanted to use color and texture to bring life to a late 1940's smoke filled jazz club. It’s inspired by one of my favorite scenes in an iconic black and white photo capturing Billie Holiday at the height of her power. This painting is 16” x 20” acrylic/wax on canvas.