Billie Holiday was an American singer. Around 1927 she first heard the records of Louis Armstrong and she cited his “West End Blues” as an influence, saying the scat vocal duet with the clarinet was her favorite part. You can hear Louis Armstrong performing ‘West End Blues’ for her and dedicating ‘Kiss to Build a Dream On’ to her in a 1952 KCBS San Francisco broadcast in one of the videos on this page. Billie Holiday is your Phantom Dancer feature artist this week.

The Phantom Dancer is your weekly non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV every week.

LISTEN to this week’s Phantom Dancer mix (online after 2pm AEST, Tuesday 30 January) and weeks of Phantom Dancer mixes online at, at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/

BILLIE

As a young teenager, Holiday started singing in nightclubs in Harlem. She took her professional pseudonym from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and Clarence Halliday, her probable father.

At the outset of her career, she spelled her last name “Halliday”, her father’s birth surname, but eventually changed it to “Holiday”, his performing name. The young singer teamed up with a neighbor, tenor saxophone player Kenneth Hollan. They were a team from 1929 to 1931, performing at clubs such as the Grey Dawn, Pod’s and Jerry’s on 133rd Street, and the Brooklyn Elks Club.

Benny Goodman recalled hearing Holiday in 1931 at the Bright Spot. As her reputation grew, she played in many clubs, including the Mexico’s and the Alhambra Bar and Grill, where she met Charles Linton, a vocalist who later worked with Chick Webb. It was also during this period that she connected with her father, who was playing in Fletcher Henderson’s band.

Late in 1932, 17-year-old Holiday replaced the singer Monette Moore at Covan’s, a club on West 132nd Street. Producer John Hammond, who loved Moore’s singing and had come to hear her, first heard Holiday there in early 1933.

Hammond arranged for Holiday to make her recording debut at age 18, in November 1933, with Benny Goodman. She recorded two songs: “Your Mother’s Son-In-Law” and “Riffin’ the Scotch”, the latter being her first hit.

“Son-in-Law” sold 300 copies, and “Riffin’ the Scotch”, released on November 11, sold 5,000 copies. Hammond was impressed by Holiday’s singing style and said of her, “Her singing almost changed my music tastes and my musical life, because she was the first girl singer I’d come across who actually sang like an improvising jazz genius.” Hammond compared Holiday favorably to Armstrong and said she had a good sense of lyric content at a young age.

In 1935, Holiday had a small role as a woman abused by her lover in uke Ellington’s musical short film Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life. She sang “Saddest Tale” in her scene.

HOLIDAY

1935 was also the year Holiday was signed to Brunswick by John Hammond to record pop tunes with pianist Teddy Wilson in the swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were allowed to improvise on the material. Holiday’s improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was highly skillful.

Brunswick did not favor the recording session because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. However, after “What a Little Moonlight Can Do” was successful, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right.

Another frequent accompanist was tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother’s house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a rapport. Young said, “I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I’d sit down and listen to ’em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices … or the same mind, or something like that.” Young nicknamed her “Lady Day”, and she called him “Prez”.

COUNT BASIE and ARTIE SHAW

Holiday had a brief stint as a big-band vocalist with Count Basie in 1937. The traveling conditions of the band were often poor; they performed many one-nighters in clubs, moving from city to city with little stability. Holiday chose the songs she sang and had a hand in the arrangements, choosing to portray her developing persona of a woman unlucky in love.

Basie became used to Holiday’s heavy involvement in the band. He said, “When she rehearsed with the band, it was really just a matter of getting her tunes like she wanted them, because she knew how she wanted to sound and you couldn’t tell her what to do.”

Holiday was unable to record in the studio with Basie, but she included many of his musicians in her recording sessions with Teddy Wilson.

Holiday found herself in direct competition with the popular singer Ella Fitzgerald. The two later became friends. Fitzgerald was the vocalist for the Chick Webb Band, which was in competition with the Basie band. On January 16, 1938, the same day that Benny Goodman performed his legendary Carnegie Hall jazz concert, the Basie and Webb bands had a battle at the Savoy Ballroom. Webb and Fitzgerald were declared winners by Metronome magazine, while DownBeat magazine pronounced Holiday and Basie the winners. Fitzgerald won a straw poll of the audience by a three-to-one margin.

By February 1938, Holiday was no longer singing for Basie. Various reasons have been given for why she was fired. Jimmy Rushing, Basie’s male vocalist, called her unprofessional.

Holiday was hired by Artie Shaw a month after being fired from the Count Basie Band. This association placed her among the first black women to work with a white orchestra, an unusual arrangement at that time.

This was also the first time a black female singer employed full-time toured the segregated U.S. South with a white bandleader.

Metronome reported that the addition of Holiday to Shaw’s band put it in the “top brackets”. Holiday could not sing as often during Shaw’s shows as she could in Basie’s; the repertoire was more instrumental, with fewer vocals.

Shaw admired Holiday’s singing in his band, saying she had a “remarkable ear” and a “remarkable sense of time”, her tenure with the band was nearing an end

By the late 1930s, Holiday had toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw, scored a string of radio and retail hits with Teddy Wilson, and became an established artist in the recording industry. 

30 January PLAY LIST