Billie Holiday: The Complete Commodore Masters (180g, brown vinyl) [WAXTIME IN COLOR]

Why you'll love it

This limited 180g pressing on brown vinyl gathers all 16 of her Commodore master takes on one LP. It includes "Strange Fruit," which Time magazine named the song of the century in 1999.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Brown vinyl
• Limited edition

About the album

Commodore was a tiny label run out of Milt Gabler's record shop on 42nd Street in New York, which makes it, as far as we're concerned, the most important thing a record shop has ever done. In April 1939 Gabler gave Billie Holiday the chance to record Abel Meeropol's "Strange Fruit," and she returned to the label in 1944 for a string of sessions that rank among her finest.

"Strange Fruit" is still one of the most haunting performances ever put on record, delivered with absolute restraint. On the same 1939 session she cut her own "Fine and Mellow," a slow, easy blues that became one of her signature tunes, plus "Yesterdays" and "I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues." The 1944 dates, with pianist Eddie Heywood's group, bring the ballads: "My Old Flame," "I'll Get By," "I Cover the Waterfront," "Embraceable You" and a tender "I'll Be Seeing You" that became a wartime favourite.

Together they show her at her most direct, a great singer with a small band and nothing to hide behind. Sixteen songs on one LP, and every one of them earns its place.

Also at Kops: more Billie Holiday on vinyl · browse Vocal Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Waxtime in Color.