Wednesday, April 08, 2015

Billie Holiday Post Script 1: Holiday on Broadway

On Tuesday night at Minton's Harlem, I stood in a room that Billie Holiday herself performed in many times and I recreated her 1948 Broadway revue to a packed and attentive house with some of the best musicians I know. And I did it on her 100th birthday.

It doesn't get any better than that.

Thank you, Julia Collins for saying yes to my ideas, thank you Talvin Wilks for grounding and shaping the work, thank you Jeremy Bacon for those flawless charts and thank you Charles Goold, Noah Jackson, Wayne Tucker and Patience Higgins for playing the living daylights out of this music. (And thank you Jett Drolette for photographing us all night!) If you were a part of the audience, thank you for celebrating Miss Holiday's 100th birthday with us. I hope you had as much fun as we did.

Next week on Tuesday April 14th --using sound bites, personal letters, rare news clippings and reviews, and yes, her music -- we will reimagine Lady Day's last Carnegie Hall performance in November of 1956.

See you there.

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