Table of Contents
Billie Holiday
To many, Eleanora Fagan, her real name, or Lady Day, she is the greatest jazz singer of all time (Anonymous, 2012). She is at once a most admired vocalist who carved an extraordinary career in less than three decades. Her stirring and biting phrasing and staccato style deeply and extensively influenced succeeding singers. Despite her limited range of delivery, she amazingly used it like a seasoned jazz instrumentalist, extending and pausing, as though engaging in a dialogue with musicians accompanying her renditions. But behind her exemplary musical genius is a sadness that was always there, reflecting how she lived from the time she was born in Baltimore, Maryland (Anonymous, 2012).
Billie lived a very sad and sordid life in the sole care of her mother (American Masters, 2006). She had to work in brothels while dreaming to become a singer. Her style of singing expressed the incomparable depth of grief, deep poverty and injustice. She was only 12 when she moved with her mother in Harlem to work as an errand in a prostitution house. She was even eventually arrested for prostitution. When she looked for a job as a dancer in Harlem and there was none, she auditioned for singing and her enormous but short-lived career began then.
Without a formal education or training in music, she improvised her own with her contralto voice. She always dreams of sounding like an instrument. Louie Armstrong and Bessie Smith were her inspirations. She became a toast in various Harlem clubs. She was only 20 when produce John Hammond managed and considered her the greatest singer he ever heard. Her talent influenced even Frank Sinatra, who publicly attested to it. In combination with saxophonist Lester Young, Billie endowed the world with some of the greatest jazz music for all time. She later on got hooked in drugs and alcohol and died in penury at only 44 years (American Masters, 2006).
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Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy Ellington, another musical giant, was born in Washington DC and later became the recognized greatest jazz composer and bandleader of his era (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2019; Open Culture, 2013). He was an originator of big-band jazz for about 50 years. Surely an icon in jazz music, Duke composed thousands of scores and created a most distinguished ensemble the Western world can never forget (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2019, Open Culture, 2013).
Duke’s musical inclinations and directions changed through the decades but his fundamental melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic bents remained during the peak of his career. He recorded with other but non-band musicians of other swing periods like Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Coleman Hawkins. Strayhorn shared Duke’s style and composed and orchestrated for Duke. Strayhorn worked with Duke so closely from 1939-1967 that even jazz analysts find it difficult to discern the weight and extent of his influence on Duke. Their merger was so intimate that musical minds find it hard to differentiate the works of the two musical geniuses (|The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2019; Open Culture, 2013).
Duke, it seems, was born for music. His family supported his interest in the fine arts and studied piano at 7 (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2019). This vigorous interest persisted in high school when he was awarded a scholarship to the Pratt Institute, which he turned down. His eyes were then fixed on ragtime musicians. He began to execute his talent and professionally perform at the young age of 17. Records show that this propensity persisted and received extensive recognition throughout life (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2019).
Comparison
Billie and Duke were both Black musical greats whose incredible talent was inborn. They were born within two decades of each other. They were both creatures of jazz and creators of jazz music. They were both hooked on it from early life till the end of their lives.
As Blacks, both were not mere creatures and creators of jazz music but also activists for the civil rights movement of Blacks (Verity, 2018). Billie inserted her very famous song, “Strange Fruit,” into her 1939 list. It was her expression against the lunching of two Blacks, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith against the background of dead bodies of other Blacks, hanging from trees. The terror and horror in the song led it to become the anthem of the early years of the Civil Rights Movement for Blacks (Verity, 2018).
On the other hand, Duke’s commitment to the Black Civil Rights Movement was shown in a different but nevertheless emphatic way ( Verity, 2018). Many fellow Blacks felt that he should have been more vocal against the discrimination shown towards them. Duke misled many for his silence and refusal to join the Martin Luther King’s march in Washington DC in 1963. But he demonstrated his commitment in a professional way. In signing performance contracts, he set a condition not to perform before segregated audiences. He also demonstrated his commitment during his tour of the South in the mid-30s with his orchestra. He avoided the Jim Crow laws by renting three train cars where his whole bank traveled, ate and slept. This ate earned respect both for his music and his band (Verity, 2018).
His jazz music exuded Black pride too (Verity, 2018). He called it “African American classical music,” which evoked the painful experience of Blacks in America. He also became a figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a connecting wave of activities among artists and intellectuals of |Blacks and supporters. His 1941 music, “Jump for Joy,” denounced the way Blacks were represented in the entertainment industry. And his 1924 composition, “Black, Brown and Beige,” relates the history of American Blacks, set to music (Verity, 2018).
Contrast
There were sharp contrasts between them, though. Duke grew up in a middle-class home and family, which supported and even encouraged his musical inclination (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2019). He had formal training in piano as early as seven years old. He went on to high school where he was awarded a scholarship for it. And he became a professional musician who began performing at only 17. He also died at an advanced age of 75 in comfort and honor by 12,000 people who described his death as an occasion of sadness for the passing away of a genius (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2019).
In contrast, Billie was born deprived. She and her mother lived in extreme poverty (Anonymous, 2012; American Masters, 2006). She had to drop out of school and had to work as an errand in a Harlem prostitution den. Although deeply talented, she had to improvise her own style as she had no formal training in singing or music. Unlike Duke, Billie’s personal life was also turbulent. Despite her rising career, much of her earnings went to drug addiction and alcohol, which led to much trouble. She even got banned from performing because of her addictions.
Due to her failing health she voluntarily stayed in an institution in the hope of eradicating the addictions. It did not work but even got worse to the point of her losing her unique voice and singing style. When her peer Lester Young died, she was desponded and became virtually penniless. She was arrested for possession of drugs and her hospital room was raided by the police. Up to her final years, her life was turbulent. She was plagued by embezzlements so much that she had only $0.70 left in her bank and $750 in her pocket. She died in pain at only 44 the way she was born and lived (American Masters, 2006; Anonymous, 2012).
References
- American Masters (2006, 8 June). Billie Holiday: the long night of Lady Day. Thirteen. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/billie-holiday-about-the-singer/68
- (Anonymous, 2012). The legends – part eight. Jazz Music. Retrieved from https://alljazzlegends.blogspot.com/2012/04/newport-jazz-festival-legends-billie.html
- Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, The (2019, 19 November) Duke Ellington, American musician. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Duke-Ellington
- Open Culture (2013, 18 May). Duke Ellington’s symphony in black, starring 19-year-old Billie Holiday. Open Culture LLC. Retrieved from http://www.openculture.com/2013/05/duke_ellingtons_isymphony_in_blacki_starring_a_19-year-old_billie_holiday.html
- Verity, M. (2018, 15 July). Jazz and the civil rights movement: how jazz musicians spoke out for racial rights. Liveabout.com. Retrieved from https://www.liveabout.com/jazz-and-the-civil-rights-movement-2039542
