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

[Jeff Sultanof]

You make a very good point here that I didn't think about, as Sarah was an
excellent musician who happened to have also been a fine pianist. Thank you.

Jeff Sultanof

On Sat, May 7, 2011 at 6:52 AM, Tim Huskisson
<timhuskisson at btinternet.com>wrote:

> 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
>
>
>