[.ca] Cocktail Hour

From Amazon.com:
These early sides of the inimitable Billie Holiday, featuring Lester Young on tenor sax (and occasional clarinet), reveal just how joyful and good-humored her singing could be, in contrast to her darker, postwar image. Her uncanny ability to stretch lyrics in new and revealing ways was there from her beginning, but on this two-CD budget-priced collection, an unmistakable playfulness is evident. On cuts like "Easy to Love" and "Easy Livin'," the steady eighth-note rhythms and piping clarinets provide just the right element for Holiday to enter unexpectedly, giving each tune an emotional lift and turning it into something completely her own. She's totally sui generis. No one has ever quite sounded like her, before or since. On these discs, the torment and trouble plaguing her later years are missing, but the music still has emotional depth and those wonderful, lyrical nuances that only Holiday could impart. That this album set lacks session information is a drawback, but the music is spectacular. --Wally Shoup

an excellent compilation:
Comprised of music that is available on Columbia's "Quintessential Billie Holiday" series, this 2 disc compilation gives us an interesting look at Lady Day during her years at that studio (1933-42). Her voice, not yet ravaged by years of drug addiction and alcoholism, is almost upbeat on most of these cuts, a marked contrast to the melancholia that accompanied much of her later recordings for Norman Granz at Verve records. Although Columbia could be accused of trying to to squeeze a few more dollars out of the "same old material", I think that this bargin priced set is an excellent introduction to Miss Holidays earlier work. Better liner notes would be helpful, a flaw that is evident in the whole "Cocktail Hour" series.

Billie's Feel Good Music:
A very generous helping of the early Holiday (28 tracks) and what a different Billie we have here, one that is happy, vibrant and ready to swing. While these tracks can be found on Columbia's Quintessential series, which stretch to 9 volumes, it's nice to have most of the cream of the crop packed onto 2 CD's here. Interestingly, it omits the songs from the last 2 volumes which is comprised of mostly slow melancholic sentimental stuff. I was surprised not to find any dates or liner notes inside, maybe that's the tradeoff for the low priced set (only ..... for 2 CDs). Listening to a lot of her Verve recordings of late, it's really refreshing to hear Billie swing again and not worry about her voice being weak or out of it on these tracks. She sounds like she's taking charge of the material and doing her own original "thing" but never at the expense of the song's spirit.. While the debate rages on about whether these sides or her later Verve stuff is better, one thing remains clear: these songs and the way they are sung here are what put Billie on the map to jazz immortality. This is very much "feel good" music of Billie's Columbia stuff. Even on the sad lyrics of "I'll Get By" and "Mean to Me", Billie never strays far from her uplift swing. She's very much in the swing mold of Ella on these sides, but there's only ONE Billie.

• I Wished on the Moon
• What a Little Moonlight Can Do
• Miss Brown to You
• Sunbonnet Blue (And a Little Straw Hat)
• These Foolish Things
• I Cried for You
• Summertime
• Billie's Blues
• Fine Romance
• Let's Call a Heart a Heart
• Easy to Love
• Way You Look Tonight
• Who Loves You?
• Pennies from Heaven
• Carelessly
• Let's Call the Whole Thing Off
• They Can't Take That Away from Me
• I'll Get By (As Long as I Have You)
• Mean to Me
• Easy Living
• I'll Never Be the Same
• Me, Myself and I
• He's Funny That Way
• Nice Work If You Can Get It
• My Man
• Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man
• I Can't Believe That You're in Love With Me
• You Go to My Head