Billie Holiday’s recording career can easily be divided into three main parts. Her 1935-42 recordings for Brunswick, Vocalion, and Okeh, both as a leader and with pianist Teddy Wilson, teamed her with all-star groups filled with many of the greats of the swing era including, most notably, tenor-saxophonist Lester Young and trumpeter Buck Clayton. Her last period for Norman Granz’s Clef and Verve labels (1952-57) were also with swing giants but found her voice gradually declining before her final two albums for Columbia (1958-59).
Between those two periods, Lady Day recorded 37 songs (and 13 alternate takes) for Decca during 1944-50. The music has been reissued many times in recent years although one of the most attractive packages is the two-CD set The Complete Decca Recordings put out by GRP back in 1991. During the 1940s, Holiday was very much in her prime, full of experience and life but not yet worn down by the ravages of alcohol and drugs. The Decca sides cover a variety of music and have Lady Day as the star, no longer having to share the spotlight with other jazz giants.
The very first Decca recording, “Lover Man,” was the biggest seller of Holiday’s career and also the first time that she recorded with strings. Lady Day is heard with other similar medium-sized bands (with and without strings), in a smaller group with her then-husband trumpeter Joe Guy and a rhy
