Billie Holiday, John Szwed
Billie Holiday, John Szwed
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Billie Holiday
The Musician and the Myth

Author: John Szwed

Narrator: Karen Chilton

Unabridged: 8 hr 4 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 03/31/2015

Synopsis

Published in celebration of Holiday's centenary, the first biography to focus on the singer's extraordinary musical talent When Billie Holiday stepped into Columbia's studios in November 1933, it marked the beginning of what is arguably the most remarkable and influential career in ?twentieth-century popular music. Her voice weathered countless shifts in public taste, and new reincarnations of her continue to arrive, most recently in the form of singers like Amy Winehouse and Adele. Most of the writing on Holiday has focused on the tragic details of her life-her prostitution at the age of fourteen, her heroin addiction and alcoholism, her series of abusive relationships-or tried to correct the many fabrications of her autobiography. But now, Billie Holiday stays close to the music, to her performance style, and to the self she created and put into print, on record and on stage. Drawing on a vast amount of new material that has surfaced in the last decade, critically acclaimed jazz writer John Szwed considers how her life inflected her art, her influences, her uncanny voice and rhythmic genius, a number of her signature songs, and her legacy.

About John Szwed

John Szwed is the author or editor of many books, including biographies of Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Sun Ra, and Alan Lomax. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, and in 2005 was awarded a Grammy for Doctor Jazz, a book included with the album Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings by Alan Lomax. A former professor of anthropology, African American studies, and film studies for twenty-six years at Yale University, he was also a professor of music and jazz studies at Columbia University, and served as the chair of the Department of Folklore and Folklife at the University of Pennsylvania. He lives in Philadelphia with his family.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Joe

The concept of "The Musician and the Myth" was very intriguing, as most bios take a rather conventional approach. In the average book focusing on a performer you get a chronological look at their private lives with a a dutiful glance at his or her career, and almost always they use the career as a w......more

Goodreads review by Monica

Libro non facile da leggere per chi come me è ignorante di cultura jazz. Non è la classica ricostruzione biografica, piuttosto una riflessione psico-sociale sulle difficoltà incontrate da una cantante talentuosa come Billie Holiday e strettamente connesse alla società, quella americana degli anni '3......more

Goodreads review by Sandy

A must-read not only for Billie Holiday fans, but for anyone with even a passing interest in musical history. Well-written and meticulously researched, the author, John Szwed––director of the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University––knows his stuff, and disabuses the oft-mistaken notion that......more

Goodreads review by Sandra

Probably the best book I've read about Billie Holiday and the genius of her musical talent. Szwed takes the long view on Holiday, focusing his sights on what made her vocalizations so unique and so enduring, examining the music she made and the genres that surrounded that music. Szwed deals with Hol......more

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List