By Carnegie Hall
Digital portrait by Stanley Chow, © Carnegie Hall
Let’s let critic Nat Hentoff, who attended Billie Holiday’s 1956 two-concert event, tell the story: “The beat flowed in her uniquely sinuous supple way of moving the story along; the words became her own experiences; and coursing through it all was Lady’s sound...
...—a texture simultaneously steel-edged and yet soft inside; a voice that was almost unbearably wise in disillusion and yet still childlike, again at the center. The audience was hers from before she sang, greeting her and saying goodbye with heavy, loving applause...
Billie Holiday (1948) by William P. Gottlieb / Ira and Leonore S. Gershwin Fund Collection, Music Division, Library of CongressCarnegie Hall
...And at one time, the musicians, too, applauded. It was a night when Billie was on top, undeniably the best and most honest jazz singer alive.”
No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn’t music.
— BILLE HOLIDAY
She performed at Carnegie Hall two dozen times starting in 1944 and ending with Billie Holiday: Lady Sings the Blues in1956.
Learn more about Carnegie Hall Icons here.
https://www.carnegiehall.org/About/History/Carnegie-Hall-Icons/Billie-Holiday
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