Lady Day: The Best of Billie Holiday

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Billie Holiday

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In 2001, Billie Holiday's landmark recordings from the first decade of her recording career have finally been remastered for best-ever sound quality on the 10-CD boxed set. The historical value of that collection is enormous, but not all admirers of Lady Day are going to have the half-day needed to absorb everything on there. Furthermore, there are a lot of similar-sounding alternate takes on the last few discs of the box. It's a paradise for collectors, but what about those who want a smaller dose of these jazz classics?

This 2-CD anthology is the answer, providing a generous helping of memorable cuts, with an preference for high-quality songs (frankly, quite a few of the tunes on the boxed set aren't worthy of Britney Spears, let alone a peerless vocalist like Billie, albeit Lady Day is renowned for turning trite songs into art). There are other one-disc collections culled from these sessions, but I highly recommend this collection above all others--the sound quality is as good as possible, and with two discs there's enough of a sampling to give the listener a good idea of what Billie and her accompiament were up to during this era...and what they were up to revolutionized popular music!

Just because a recording is remastered, that doesn't mean it's been remastered well. Columbia's remastering of these Billie Holiday recording is a case in point. If you listen to Columbia's Quintessential Billie Holiday series that came out in 1989, you'll notice that those albums (with the same recordings that are on this CD) had infinitely better sound.

Simply put, these remastered versions sound awful. There's a constant, loud hissing in the background of every track that should NOT be there. It's amazing that such bad remastering work could come from Columbia (and on these legendary recordings, no less).

I'm surprised that none of the reviewers on this site seem to have noticed the shoddy sound quality on these remasters, but if you compare these recordings to the originals, the difference is glaringly obvious.

It's a real shame! Because if you want to hear the genius of these Billie Holiday recordings, you'll have to dig up the The Quintessential Billie Holiday series from '89 which is pristine, gorgeous, and mostly out of print now.