Although many of
Billie Holiday
's recordings for
Commodore
and
Decca
are often overlooked -- at least in comparison to the songs that bookend her career (for
Columbia
Verve
) -- they include some of her best work, beginning at the end of the '30s with
"Strange Fruit"
and stretching to the end of the '40s with
"God Bless the Child."
In 1939,
was a jazz sensation without a hit record. She gained that hit record, and began her journey to musical immortality, when her label
refused to record
"Strange Fruit,"
and jazz fan
Milt Gabler
welcomed her to his aficionado label,
.
Gabler
recorded
Holiday
often over the next ten years, both at
and through his work at
in the mid-to late '40s. While on
,
focused on downcast ballads, including
"I Cover the Waterfront"
"I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues"
(dubbed "loser" songs by
), but she also excelled with warm and affectionate material too,
"Embraceable You"
"On the Sunny Side of the Street."
Regardless of the material, her backing consisted of small groups usually led by a pair of saloon-sound maestros:
Doc Cheatham
on trumpet and
Eddie Heywood
on piano. That sound was in for a switch when
moved to
, however, beginning with another big hit,
"Lover Man,"
a pop ballad with the full crossover treatment -- strings and all. (
had no compunction about false notions of purity, and he happily recorded
with strings and backing choruses whenever the song demanded it.) Even more than her work for
's work for
was melancholy and resigned in the extreme, with sterling treatments of yet more loser songs:
"Don't Explain,"
"Good Morning Heartache,"
"You Better Go Now,"
"What Is This Thing Called Love."
Individually, the songs are excellent, and as a package,
The Complete Commodore & Decca Masters
can hardly be beat. It's a splendid accompaniment to similar sets devoted to
's
output, and while completists will bemoan the lack of the many alternate takes -- most of the
sides have two alternate takes for each master recording, available elsewhere -- this is all the war-years
one could hope for. ~ John Bush