[78-L] Your Mother's Son-In-Law - BG and Billie Holiday on Columbia Blue Shellac

[Tim Huskisson]

If Teddy Wilson was complimentary about Sarah Vaughan and not Billie
Holiday, I suspect it had something to do with Sarah Vaughan's musicality.
Don't get me wrong; BOTH were great, but for different reasons. Billie
Holiday's greatness was in her ability to make a song 'her own' by the way
she phrased, and didn't stick closely to the published melody. Her approach
was not unlike Louis Armstrong's, but nevertheless quite revolutionary among
singers for the time. But Teddy Wilson, the consummate musician that he was,
may have been far more impressed by singers who understood the
technicalities of the music. The harmonic content. I don't know, but I think
it possible that for all Billie Holiday's greatness, she may have struggled
to pitch difficult songs, and needed some help. Sarah Vaughan's musicality
may even have been in advance of Teddy Wilson's own, and he would have
recognised her greatness in this respect.
More often than not, the 'best' singers are often great for reasons OTHER
than their technical musical ability. 

Tim Huskisson


-----Original Message-----
From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com
[mailto:78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] On Behalf Of Taylor Bowie
Sent: 07 May 2011 03:48
To: 78-L Mail List
Subject: Re: [78-L] Your Mother's Son-In-Law - BG and Billie Holiday on
Columbia Blue Shellac

>> These interviews we are discussing took place several years after the 
>> fact.
>> The interview that I am referring to took place in the seventies. 
>> Obviously,
>> Wilson could compliment whom he felt like by then. He just didn't think 
>> that
>> Billie Holiday was such a big deal. He preferred other singers to her. It
>> was just funny how the interviewer tried to get him to say something
>> complimentary about her and he just wasn't buying into it.
> I agree. But my point is, was his attitude racist, or based upon other
> reasons?
>
> -- 
> Mark L. Bardenwerper, Sr. #:?)


Seems unlikely that racism entered into it,  given that both Wilson and 
Holiday were black.  I seem to recall Wilson somewhere in print speaking 
very highly of Sarah Vaughn,  too.

Taylor


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