Lady Day

Essence of Jazz music.

It’s still unclear who exactly suggested me to “ear-taste” this grande Dame du Jazz’s tunes but I can remember writing a note on my phone -that’s how I actually keep track of all the stuff I either postpone or just want to deeper check. I left it there for a while, which I feel hugely guilty about now.

After a few songs my mind automatically jumped into my first Sleep No More New-York experience back in July this year: Smoky & early XX^th. Her voice took me right to an industrial-new-England speak-easy. Her tunes merely perfectly fits an after-work body & soul mood on a weekday. As much as a cosy Sunday afternoon. Alone, or with your pals. Happy or sick of the averageness life serves. In your bath or in your kitchen. Sober with a book or Armagnac in your tumblr. Her almost shy voice range offsets with an instinctive sense of musical structure that pierces through you rather instantly.

She’s one of those artists who’s voice slows the course things and brings you to a zone of focus and peace.

If I had to compare her with Ella (not the kiwi one) or other of her contemporary vocalists, although they may be commonly put on a similar footstep, it seems to me that B.H. is emblematic of an entire genre, era of time in most of its aspects in a quite striking way – and that’s the power of music, and what makes it an art: mirroring its contemporary human society.

She took the name Billie from a favourite movie actress, Billie Dove and gathered experience at the root level of jazz and blues. Sinatra will later say after her death that she was the most musically influential artist of the past 30 years, deeply inspiring him too.

My favorite ones: