Billie Holidays' anniversary

My apologies for disappearing from sight for so long. I've been busy thinking!
What has prompted this reawakening is that I notice this year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Billie Holiday. Here is an artist about I have always had mixed feelings.
With everyone else, I have to admire her skill in what one biographer called "the subtleties of  jazz phrasing". Just listen to "Strange Fruit" and you see this. There is no doubt that she was one of the first  female singers to reinvent the style of singing used by most big band singers: sing it the way it's written; the result of this was usually a rather forgettable performance which didn't steal the spotlight from the band.
My problem is with the voice itself. I suppose it's a matter of taste, really. I like my singers to have a nice, pleasant voice, easy on the ears, even at top volume. I can't enjoy one that is harsh or shrill. I'm thinking here of people like Ethel Merman - a shouter more than a singer, or - forgive me for the hard judgment - Louis Armstrong - old gravel voice, yet not too hard to take. Billie Holiday is not one of these extreme examples, but quite often she can sound very shrill when she increases volume. Also, I feel that the instrument is lacking in range and the ability to sustain notes. Now I admit that it sounds like I'm making demands that one might make for opera singers. But my theory is that since there were these deficiencies, she simply created her own style of singing that compensated for them. The result was a very unique and personal way of phrasing and the gift to jazz of Billie Holiday.

Following up on sax players, I realize I left out a few good ones from my collection, like Flip Philips, (who, to my mind, often sounds like a combination of Freddy Gardner and Lester Young), Stanley Turrentine, Charlie Rouse, who worked for years with Thelonious Monk, Johnny Hodges, and Sonny Rollins, he of the dozen ideas per second.  
There are some great Canadians who remain virtually unknown. Eugene Amaro did a couple of great albums with strings, Moe Koffman was equally at home on the sax as the flute, but of course is remembered only for “Swingin’ Shepherd Blues”. More recent players in this tradition include Fraser McPherson (CD “Honey & Spice”) , P. J.  Perry,(CD “P. J. Perry”),  Mike Murley (CD “Live at the Senator”). 
Then there are the trumpeters of this type whom I love to listen to: Bobby Hackett had a monopoly on this kind of playing, as evident on the LP “Most Beautiful Horn in the World” with pipe organ, and a few other LPs with what was called the “Jackie Gleason Orchestra”  Some people used to write this off as “elevator music”. They either had no ear or just weren’t really listening. Chet Baker is another who did a lot of this and is described often in liner notes with the same word as Hackett - “lyrical” (CD “Chet”).  Clifford Brown also did an album with strings, very easy on the ears.
The tradition is kept alive in Canada by Guido Basso who did a great CD with Doug Riley on organ perfectly entitled “A Lazy Afternoon” (It works for evening too).
 
I say let’s bring back “Make-out music” like this, since (in my opinion) most contemporary pop music is about as far away from being “romantic” as you can get!

For Starters

Well, after delaying for over a  week puzzling about where to start in all my music collection, I finally thought why not just start with what I'm listening to lately. Something I've always enjoyed is jazz saxophone, playing what used to be called "ballads" i.e., slow tunes. I find it very relaxing to listen late at night with lights down low, letting the rich sound wash over me, especially the big more full-bodied tenor sax, lazily spinning out a melody, with maybe a piano or organ, or even a full string orchestra as accompaniment. This was very popular at one time, sometimes call "mood music" ( more crassly by the less musically inclined "make-out music"!). Some of my favourites who were best at this were Gene Amnons, Coleman Hawkins, Ike Quebec, Ben Webster, and a guy you may have heard of - Charlie Parker, on alto sax, who plays a little more up-tempo ("bop" or "bebop"). Also from an earlier period there was Freddy Gardner from England who had a really sweet sound. Did you know, by the way,  that former U.S. President Bill Clinton was a pretty good sax player?  He has one track on a CD ironically named "Safe Sax" (!) that includes many big names like Parker and Hawkins.

I tried to find examples on Youtube but the closest I came was a video of Parker and Hawkins together (piano intro), not the kind of stuff I'm talking about exactly, but at least it gives you an idea of their sound. 

If you want to get a general idea of this sound, look for compilations with other great sax players: "Safe Sax",  "Bedroom Tenors", "Saxophone Heroes", for example, or any CD where the ones named above are playing "ballads". 

Of course, when you google this subject, you get information about American players but no Canadians.  

Next time, I'll talk about some other lesser known sax players, and Canadians.