Maps of Music

Lady in Satin (1958)

Where the lyrics of Lady in Satin take you, and where it was really made.

Billie Holiday asked for a pretty, delicate record and got a 40-piece orchestra, the most expensive production of her career, while her voice was already worn down.

Key places

Recorded at CBS 30th Street Studio (1958)

Recording site Columbia 30th Street Studio — Holiday recorded the album at CBS 30th Street Studio in New York City. The sessions were held in late February 1958, on 19, 20 and 21 February. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Lady in Satin: eleventh studio album by jazz singer Billie Holiday
• Released 1958 on Columbia Records; mono CL 1157, stereo CS 8048
• Penultimate album completed by Holiday
• Produced by Irving Townsend, engineered by Fred Plaut
• Her final album, Billie Holiday, came out just before her death and was later retitled Last Recording

Background

• By 1957, Holiday had recorded twelve albums for Granz and was unhappy
• She decided not to renew her contract with Norman Granz's label
• October 1957: she contacted Columbia producer Irving Townsend
• She wanted to record with bandleader Ray Ellis
• She first wanted Nelson Riddle, then preferred Ellis after hearing his version of For All We Know
• This was her return to Columbia after sixteen years
• Columbia asked for songs she had never recorded before, drawn from the Great American Songbook
• She returned to full orchestral backdrops, as in her Decca years

Recording

• Ray Ellis made his arrangements to match Holiday's voice
• Her voice had changed through years of alcohol and drug abuse, becoming fragile and raspy
• Her phrasing style still remained at her command
• Recording dates were set for late February 1958
• Ellis used a 40-piece orchestra with horns, strings, reeds and a three-piece choir

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Born Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia; grew up in Baltimore.
• Began singing in Harlem nightclubs as a young teenager, taking her stage name from actress Billie Dove and her father Clarence Halliday.
• Discovered by producer John Hammond, who arranged her recording debut in November 1933 with Benny Goodman.

Members

• Solo artist; frequent collaborators included pianist Teddy Wilson and tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who nicknamed her "Lady Day".

Career

• Signed to Brunswick in 1935; recorded many sessions with Teddy Wilson, including "What a Little Moonlight Can Do".
• Toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw in 1937–1938, among the first Black women to work with a white orchestra.
• Recorded "Strange Fruit" for Commodore in 1939, which became her best-selling record.
• Had hits on Decca in the 1940s, including "Lover Man" and "God Bless the Child".
• Arrested for narcotics in 1947 and sentenced to prison; returned to perform a sold-out Carnegie Hall concert in 1948.
• Recorded for Verve and Columbia in the 1950s, including the album Lady in Satin (1958).
• Died on July 17, 1959, at age 44 from cirrhosis and heart failure.
• Won four posthumous Grammy Awards; inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

Reappraisal

• The Penguin Guide to Jazz: three stars out of four, with a basic reservation about the album
• The reservation: a voyeuristic look at a beaten woman
• The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide: the Lady presented overdressed, from a late Fifties period when much of Billie's punch was gone
• Trumpeter Buck Clayton preferred the later Holiday to the younger woman he had worked with in the 1930s
• Ray Ellis recalled Holiday in tears hearing the playback of I'm a Fool to Want You
• Ellis later judged her performance only after hearing the final mix weeks afterward
• AllMusic: this was Holiday's penultimate album, recorded when her body had reached its limit

Records

• Reissued by Legacy Records on September 23, 1997, with 20-bit remastering and four bonus tracks
• Inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000
• Rolling Stone rated the album at number 317 in its 2020 Top 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time
• Included in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · de.wikipedia.org · fr.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Columbia provided an unlimited budget for the album.
• Musicians in the orchestra were paid 60 dollars for the three sessions; Holiday was paid 150 dollars per side in advance.
• Ellis's 40-piece orchestra made it Holiday's most expensive music production.
• Producer Phil Schaap found the unused master tape for the stereo version of The End of a Love Affair during the 1997 reissue.
• Ray Ellis's view of her voice was strong: he said he had been in love with it.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · it.wikipedia.org

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