Myth of Arrival

Q: What does Eva Cassidy, Nellie Lutcher, Diana Ross, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, Etta Jones, Deborah Coleman, Erskine Hawkins, Gene Ammons, Terence Blanchard, Carmen McRae, Topsy Chapman, Patty Waters, Mary Stallings, Ranee Lee, Carrie Smith, Lezlie Anders, Sonji Kimmons, Clark Terry, Ruth Brown, Tom Skinner, Roy Rubenstein, The Brooklyn Repertory Ensemble, Clarence Lofton, Miss Henry, Albinia Jones, Merline Johnson and Juanita Holiday have in common with Billie Holiday?

A: They all covered (I believe) her tune Fine and Mellow.

This leads to another question: where were you on December 5th, 1957? Not at the CBS 30th Street Studios in New York, apparently, watching history be made, I guess. I saved all my pennies and recently bought a collection of Billie Holiday, Lester Young and the Mal Waldron All-Stars' finest, a musical romance.¹ I got it for one reason alone: there was a new version of Fine & Mellow I had not yet heard.

I love this song.

But credit needs to go to Nat Hentoff, who I first listened to on a sensational NPR segment explaining the reason why "so many jazz enthusiasts … consider Billie's performance of Fine & Mellow on this broadcast to be among the best of her career." There are a variety of websites you can go to to listen to one or two versions of the song. But even the words makes me want to become a torch singer:

My man don't love me,
treats me oh so mean.
My man, he don't love me,
treats me awful mean.
He's the lowest man
that I've ever seen.

He wears high-draped pants,
stripes are really yellow.
He wears high-draped pants,
stripes are really yellow.
But when he starts in to love me,
he's so fine and mellow

Love will make you drink and gamble,
make you stay out all night long.
love will make you drink and gamble,
make you stay out all night long.
Love will make you do things that you know is wrong.

But if you treat me right, daddy,
I'll stay home every day.
If you treat me right, daddy,
I'll stay home every day.
But you're so mean to me, baby,
I know you're gonna drive me away.

Love is just like a faucet,
it turns off and on.
Love is just like a faucet,
It turns off and on.
Some times when you think it's on, baby,
it has turned off and gone.

In a review of Hentoff's collected essays, Bill Kirtz writes:

Hentoff brings to life Robert Herridge, the iconoclastic and now-forgotten television pioneer. The two produced the best jazz program ever to grace the small screen: 1957’s “Sound of Jazz.” When Billie Holiday silently sways to Lester Young’s poignant “Fine and Mellow” saxophone solo, you can, says Hentoff, see their souls.

I think someday when I win the lotto I'd like to put together a collection of every cover of this song would rock my socks. I have seen photos of Lady Day singing in this recording session, but the entire event (for me at least) falls into the realm of myth. In an interview on March 21, 1996, Hentoff writes of his experience with Lester Young and Billie Holiday on that famous recording session:

Lester and Billie had been very close for years. They gave each other nicknames that the other musicians picked up. Billie called Lester "Pres," and it was always Pres after that, and Lester called her "Lady Day" … And the thing with Billie was a small group, Roy Eldridge, Lester, and Billie was singing one of the very few blues she ever did, "Fine and Mellow," which she wrote. Lester got up and he played the purest blues I have ever heard, and they were looking at each other, their eyes were sort of interlocked, and she was sort of nodding and half-smiling. It was as if they were both remembering what had been, whatever that was. And in the control room, I was there … [and] we were all crying. I mean it was, there was this, it was just a natural reaction, it was so utterly moving.

1. This whole long mediation on one song started when I wrote to my friend Brina about finding the song. I said:

   You know when you think you've heard every version there is to a song and suddenly you put something on the stereo and it blows the top of your head off? (not literally, that would be messy) so it was with me with this one song by Billie Holiday, Fine and Mellow. Have you heard this? I had this one live version, I think, something like Billie at Carnegie Hall, and one studio version (the problem with lending out your CDs to friends is that they are never there when you need them) anyway I was feeling as if I knew this song pretty well. That there were no more surprises. But suddenly … I thought: "wow! I've never heard this version before." It wasn't just Billie's voice, it was all the instruments. By the time the song was over I was exhilarated, with goose bumps all over my arms. That's how I know something wild and primeval and hotheaded is happening, some deep part of me reacts to it.

   [back]

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 29th, 2006 at 7:27 pm and is filed under Scantily Clad Info Dump. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.