Book Review: Billie Holiday: The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday’s Last Year, by Paul Alexander

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

A mid-priced CD containing an hour of recordings for Verve Records was my first encounter with Billie Holiday. In addition to permanently demarcating my taste in jazz vocals, the mid-1980s acquisition introduced me to staples of the Great American Songbook. Holiday’s slippery, scat-free delivery of songs like “All or Nothing at All,” “Comes Love,” and “Darn That Dream” is staggeringly profound.

Detailed accounts of Holiday’s fabulist tendencies, sexual proclivities and drug and alcohol intake in Paul Alexander’s new study Bitter Crop: The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday’s Last Year don’t add or detract from my appreciation of her artistry.

The importance of Alexander’s work lies in his chronicling of the concerted campaign by United States government agencies in derailing Holiday’s career. The decades-long harassment went well beyond the revoked cabaret card that’s a notorious part of Holiday lore. 

Bitter Crop examines the ways in which Holiday was hassled in virtually every aspect of her life. What Alexander characterizes as “a sinister- and intentional- tactic of intimidation” persisted even as Holiday was on her deathbed. It’s impossible not to feel outraged about the unjustifiable human tragedy suffered by Holiday as well as for the cultural loss resulting from the United States’ slow-motion assassination of one of the most important artists of the 20th century.

Album Review: Moor Mother- Jazz Codes

On “Easyjet,” a brief skit placed in the middle of 700 Bliss’s 2022 album Nothing to Declare, DJ Haram and Moor Mother mock the spoken word artist’s vitriolic persona: “who wants to hear that sh*t?… Moor Mother’s all like ‘blah blah blah blah blah blah’… is this even music?”

The bit is hilarious in part because Moor Mother is susceptible to accusations of being noisy for the sake of noise.  And her rage has occasionally lacked focus.  Yet she’s completely on point on the melodic new album Jazz Codes.  In reclaiming the notion of jazz as a revolutionary sound of freedom, Moor Mother crafted a vital work of art.  Rejecting polite supper club sounds and the associated cultural appropriation of the form, she insists jazz belongs on riot-torn streets.

Two of the best tracks celebrate the religious faith of Mary Lou Williams and memorialize the ill-fated trumpeter Woody Shaw.  Yet Jazz Codes isn’t nostalgic.  Homages to the likes of John Coltrane, Billie Holiday and Amina Claudine Myers are peppered with references to D’Angelo, Tupac Shakur and Kanye West.  Jazz Codes affirms that Moor Mother has grown into an invaluable component of that musical continuum.

Jazz scholar Thomas Stanley makes a statement of purpose on the last selection: “ultimately, perhaps it is good that the people abandoned jazz- replaced it with musical products better suited for capitalism’s designs. Now jazz jumps up like Lazarus if we allow it, to rediscover itself as a living music.”  Jazz Codes is capable of accelerating this welcome resurrection.  

My enthusiasm comes with a caveat.  I made a 300-mile round trip to see Moor Mother perform with Irreversible Entanglements in the midst of the pandemic.  The band’s Open the Gates was my second-favorite album of 2021.  And I featured Moor Mother’s Black Encyclopedia of the Air in the seventh episode of my In My Headache podcast.  Jazz Codes is my presumptive top album of 2022, but less adventurous listeners might wonder if it’s “even music.”

Film Find: Les Parapluies de Cherbourg

Exasperated by my obsessive investigations into arcane cultural niches, my life partner recently asked “how do you find these things?”  She immediately forgets about my frequent commercial hip-hop and professional sports binges when our home is overtaken by Evan Parker’s free jazz or is monopolized by the experimental films of Bill Morrison.

With an increasingly tenuous ability to differentiate between approachable and inaccessible forms of art, I was pleasantly surprised when my partner stuck around for a screening of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg).  The loopy 1964 French film is unlike anything either of us had encountered.

Sung-through by a cast of remarkably attractive actors including Catherine Deneuve, the lush color schemes captured by cinematographer Jean Rabier and director Jacques Demy are stunning.  Every element of the romantic tragedy is captivating in spite of the preposterous premise.

Michel Legrand’s ingenious score circumvents seemingly inevitable disaster.  I’d previously thought of Legrand only as the composer of “The Windmills of Your Mind.”  No more.  Having abandoned attempts to exterminate Les Parapluies de Cherbourg earworms including "Chez Dubourg" and "A L'Appartement", I added Legrand’s sublime soundtrack to my regular rotation.  The film streams on YouTube here.

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The sixth episode of my In My Headache podcast is available for streaming.  Aaron Rhodes and I ponder Flying Lotus’ Yasuke, Origami Angel’s Gami Gang and Ted Nugent’s 1975 debut solo album.  Caveat: I remain annoyed by my collaborator’s decision to punk me with his selection of unflattering audio teasers.

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The notes I posted five days ago at Plastic Sax are still the sole published analysis of the Billie Holiday at Sugar Hill: Photographs by Jerry Dantzic exhibit at the American Jazz Museum.