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Definition: Holiday, Billie from Philip's Encyclopedia

US blues and jazz singer, nicknamed Lady Day. She became famous in the 1930s with the bands of Count Basie and Artie Shaw. Her melancholic renditions of "My Man, Mean to Me" (1937) and "God Bless the Child" (1941) are legendary in the history of jazz.


Billie Holiday (1915–1959)

From African American Almanac
Singer Billie Holiday, dubbed “Lady Day” by Lester Young, was one of the greatest jazz singers of all time. She was born Eleanor Fagan on April 7, 1915, in Baltimore, Maryland. While still a young girl, she moved from Baltimore to New York City, and in 1931 she began her singing career in an assortment of Harlem night spots. In 1933 she cut her first sides with Benny Goodman. From 1935 to 1939 she established her reputation with a series of records made with Teddy Wilson. Holiday also sang with the bands of Count Basie, Artie Shaw, and Lester Young. In such classic records as “Strange Fruit” and her own “God Bless the Child,” she departed from popular material to score her greatest artistic triumphs, depicting the harsh reality of Southern lynching and the personal alienation she had experienced. The 1939 release of “Strange Fruit” was rejected by her own label Columbia, which refused to record it. By 1944, with the release of “Lover Man,” Holiday's sound reflected more of a pop sound. …
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Full text Article Holiday, Billie [Eleanora]

From The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography
American jazz singer. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, she was the daughter of a professional guitarist. After a childhood of hardship she became a prostitute in New York and served a short spell of imprisonment. She started singing in Harlem bars in 1931. An instant local success, she began recording…
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From 1935 to 1942 she recorded with Teddy Wilson and under her own name, accompanied by some of the finest swing musicians, including Lester Young. In this unsurpassed collection of jazz singing Holiday reinterpreted popular melodies with great freedom and in her blues-inflected delivery brought an…
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Billie Holiday (1915–1959)
Singer Billie Holiday, dubbed “Lady Day” by Lester Young, was one of the greatest jazz singers of all time. She was born Eleanor Fagan on April 7, 1915, in Baltimore, Maryland. While still a young girl, she moved from Baltimore to New York City, and in 1931 she began her singing career in an…
| 245 words , 1 image
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Full text Article Billie Holiday (1915–1959)

From Trailblazing Women!: Amazing Americans Who Made History
Billie Holiday (1915–1959)
Singer Regarded by most jazz critics as the greatest jazz singer ever recorded, Billie Holiday revolutionized vocal performing, taking it from the accompaniment position of the big band “girl singer” to center stage and the main attraction. Her highly emotional renditions and skill in improvisation…
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Full text Article Billie Holiday (1915–1959)

From The American Women's Almanac: 500 Years of Making History
Billie Holiday (1915–1959)
Regarded by most jazz critics as the greatest jazz singer ever recorded, Billie Holiday revolutionized vocal performing, taking it from the accompaniment position of the big band “girl singer” to center stage and the main attraction. Her highly emotional renditions and skill in improvisation are the…
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Full text Article Billie Holiday (1915–1959)

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
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Full text Article Biographies

From The American Women's Almanac: 500 Years of Making History Full text Article Media and the Performing Arts
Jay Presson Allen (1922–2006) Marian Anderson (1897–1993) Dorothy Arzner (1897–1979) Josephine Baker (1906–1975) Lucille Ball (1911–1989) Ethel Barrymore (1879–1959) Amy Beach (1867–1944) …
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Full text Article MUSIC

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
Music, the greatest good that mortals know, And all of heaven we have below. ADDISON, Joseph ‘ Song for St Cecilia’s Day ’ (1694). The music teacher came twice a week to bridge the awful gap between Dorothy and Chopin. [Attr.] I can’t listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer…
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Henry “Red” Allen (1908–1967) Louis Armstrong (1901–1971) “Count” Basie (1904–1984) Sidney Bechet (1897–1959) Art Blakely (1919–1990) Jimmy Blanton (1918–1942) William Lee Conley Broonzy (1893–1958) ... …
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Full text Article Holiday, Billie

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Billie Holiday, 1958. Credit:Reprinted with...
(born April 7, 1915, Baltimore, Md., U.S.—died July 17, 1959, New York, N.Y.) U.S. jazz singer. She was “discovered” while she was singing in a Harlem nightclub in 1933. Recordings with Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington led to a series of outstanding small-group records (1935–42) featuring musicians…
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