sexta-feira, 10 de janeiro de 2014

Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday (Filadélfia, 7 de Abril, 1915 — Nova Iorque, 17 de Julho, 1959), Lady Day para os fãs, é por muitos considerada a maior de todas as cantoras do jazz.

Nascida Eleanor Fagan Gough, foi criada em Baltimore por pais adolescentes. Quando nasceu, seu pai, Clarence Holiday, tinha quinze anos de idade e sua mãe, Sara Fagan, apenas treze . Seu pai, guitarrista e banjista, abandonou a família quando Billie ainda era bebê, seguindo viagem com uma banda de jazz. Sua mãe, também inexperiente, freqüentemente a deixava com familiares.

Billie Holiday

Menina americana negra e pobre, Billie passou por todos os infortúnios possíveis. Aos dez anos foi violentada por um vizinho, e internada numa casa de correção. Aos doze, trabalhava lavando assoalhos em prostíbulo e aos catorze anos, morando com sua mãe em Nova York, caiu na prostituição.

Billie Holiday

Sua vida como cantora começou em 1930. Estando mãe e filha ameaçadas de despejo por falta de pagamento de sua moradia, Billie sai à rua em desespero, na busca de algum dinheiro. Entrando em um bar do Harlem, ofereceu-se como dançarina, mostrando-se um desastre. Penalizado, o pianista perguntou-lhe se sabia cantar. Billie cantou e saiu com um emprego fixo.

Billie Holiday

Após três anos cantando em diversas casas, atraiu a atenção do crítico John Hammond, através de quem ela gravou seu primeiro disco, em companhia de Benny Goodman. Era o real início de sua carreira. Atingiu a celebridade, apresentando-se com as orquestras de Duke Ellington, Teddy Wilson, Count Basie e Artie Shaw, e ao lado de Louis Armstrong.

Billie Holiday  & Louis Armstrong

Billie Holiday foi uma das mais comoventes cantoras de jazz de sua época. Com uma voz etérea, flexível e levemente rouca, Sua dicção, seu fraseado, a sensualidade à flor da voz, expressando incrível profundidade de emoção, a aproximaram do estilo de Lester Young, com quem, em quatro anos, gravou cerca de cinqüenta canções, repletas de swing e cumplicidade.

A partir de 1940, apesar do sucesso, Billie Holiday, sucumbiu ao álcool e às drogas, passando por momentos de depressão, refletindo em sua voz.

diasporicroots: Billie Holiday - April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959 Considered by many to be the greatest jazz vocalist of all time, Billie Holiday lived a tempestuous and difficult life. Her singing expressed an incredible depth of emotion that spoke of hard times and injustice as well as triumph. Though her career was relatively short and often erratic, she left behind a body of work as great as any vocalist before or since.Born Eleanora Fagan in 1915, Billie Holiday spent much of her young life in Baltimore, Maryland. Raised primarily by her mother, Holiday had only a tenuous connection with her father, who was a jazz guitarist in Fletcher Henderson’s band. Living in extreme poverty, Holiday dropped out of school in the fifth grade and found a job running errands in a brothel. When she was twelve, Holiday moved with her mother to Harlem, where she was eventually arrested for prostitution.Desperate for money, Holiday looked for work as a dancer at a Harlem speakeasy. When there wasn’t an opening for a dancer, she auditioned as a singer. Long interested in both jazz and blues, Holiday wowed the owner and found herself singing at the popular Pod and Jerry’s Log Cabin. This led to a number of other jobs in Harlem jazz clubs, and by 1933 she had her first major breakthrough. She was only twenty when the well-connected jazz writer and producer John Hammond heard her fill in for a better-known performer. Soon after, he reported that she was the greatest singer he had ever heard. Her bluesy vocal style brought a slow and rough quality to the jazz standards that were often upbeat and light. This combination made for poignant and distinctive renditions of songs that were already standards. By slowing the tone with emotive vocals that reset the timing and rhythm, she added a new dimension to jazz singing.With Hammond’s support, Holiday spent much of the 1930s working with a range of great jazz musicians, including Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson, Duke Ellington, Ben Webster, and most importantly, the saxophonist Lester Young. Together, Young and Holiday would create some of the greatest jazz recordings of all time. They were close friends throughout their lives—giving each other their now-famous nicknames of “Lady Day” and the “Prez.” Sympathetic to Holiday’s unique style, Young helped her create music that would best highlight her unconventional talents. With songs like “This Year’s Kisses” and “Mean To Me,” the two composed a perfect collaboration.It was not, however, until 1939, with her song “Strange Fruit,” that Holiday found her real audience. A deeply powerful song about lynching, “Strange Fruit” was a revelation in its disturbing and emotional condemnation of racism. Holiday’s voice could be both quiet and strong at the same time. Songs such as “God Bless the Child” and “Gloomy Sunday” expressed not only her undeniable talent, but her incredible pain as well. Due to constant racial attacks, Holiday had a difficult time touring and spent much of the 1940s working in New York. While her popularity was growing, Holiday’s personal life remained troubled. Though one of the highest paid performers of the time, much of her income went to pay for her serious drug addictions. Though plagued by health problems, bad relationships, and addiction, Holiday remained an unequaled performer.By the late 1940s, after the death of her mother, Holiday’s heroin addiction became so bad she was repeatedly arrested— eventually checking herself into an institution in the hopes of breaking her habit. By 1950, the authorities denied her a license to perform in establishments selling alcohol. Though she continued to record and perform afterward, this marked the major turning point in her career. For the next seven years, Holiday would slip deeper into alcoholism and begin to lose control of her once perfect voice. In 1959, after the death of her good friend Lester Young and with almost nothing to her name, Billie Holiday died at the age of forty-four. During her lifetime she had fought racism and sexism, and in the face of great personal difficulties triumphed through a deep artistic spirit. It is a tragedy that only after her death could a society, who had so often held her down, realize that in her voice could be heard the true voice of the times. Source: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/billie-holiday/about-the-singer/68/
Billie Holiday ainda jovem

Pouco antes de sua morte, Billie Holiday publicou sua autobiografia, Lady Sings the Blues, a partir da qual foi feito um filme, em 1972, tendo Diana Ross no papel principal.

Billie Holiday só ganhou a devida fama e respeito após sua morte. Para conhecer sua vida não é preciso ler nenhuma biografia, mas apenas ouvir sua voz interpretando as centenas de preciosidades que deixou gravadas.

Lady Sings the Blues ( O filme)

Lady Sings the Blues (O Ocaso de uma Estrela (título no Brasil) ) é um filme estadunidense de 1972 que narra a vida da cantora de jazz Billie Holiday, tendo como base a autobiografia homônima dela lançada no ano de 1956. Produzido pela Motown Productions para a Paramount Pictures, o filme traz Diana Ross no papel principal. Ainda no elenco, estão os atores Billy Dee Williams e Richard Pryor.

Trailer do filme Lady Sings The Blues

O roteiro foi escrito por Chris Clark, Suzanne De Passe e Terence McCloy tendo como base o livro de Holiday e William Dufty. A direção ficou a cargo de Sidney J. Furie.

Agora vamos ficar com uma emocionante canção:


Strange Fruits, um dos maiores sucessos da cantora

Artigo publicado pelo site: http://www.lastfm.com.br/music/Billie+Holiday/+wiki
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