album Billie Holiday + Lester Young - A Musical Romance mp3 download

It’s well worth considering that Billie Holiday and Lester Young were the Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris of their day, of the jazz world, and of all things legendary. Greatness shows itself in many ways, certainly the press was as infatuated with Billie’s romantic beauty as they were with her infatuation and love for heroin. Though let us not forget Lester Young, who like Gram Parsons lived on the fringes of reality with a fragile temperament due largely to his alcoholism, and was responsible for jazz movements and structures that weren’t anticipated during his life, would not be appreciated until after his death, when his genius was recognized for what it truly was.Combining these two personalities, while combining their respective talents is staggering. And again, like Emmylou and Gram, the press forever hinted at a relationship that may, or may not have existed. What we do know, and what is presented here, is pure magic, true love, exhaustion with a passion for the songs whose respective parts seem to be played and sung to and for each other. There are many things I truly regret not having witnessed, and this recording is one of them, presented by CBS on the 5th of December 1957, aired as “The Sound Of Jazz,” and brought not only jazz but Holiday and Young out of the shadows and into the limelight of mainstream Americans ... most of whom had never witnessed anything as seductively beautiful as this.Forget the rest of the cast, though Mal Waldron and Teddy Wilson deserve much credit, but it’s the interplay between Billie and Lester, their support of each other, their ability to instinctively know where the other was headed, their ability to interchange at a glance the constructive nature of following, leading, and an emotional interplay of equality. This is a flawless recording, even if it does capture the gentle weariness in Billie Holiday’s voice, or the aspect of Lester Young’s notes not conveying the sharp crispness they once did, nevertheless this is one adventure that should be part of everyone’s collection, one that will let you hear just how good it feels to be alive.Review by Jenell Kesler