Billie Holiday - Body and Soul (Verve Acoustic Sounds Vinyl LP)

Billie Holiday - Body and Soul | Vinyl LP - Verve Acoustic Sounds Series Reissue (MGV-8197, mono, mastered by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound)

Billie Holiday recorded Body and Soul across four days in early January 1957, working at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles with a small group assembled by Norman Granz. Ben Webster plays tenor saxophone on every track, and the pairing defines the album. His tone is breathy and worn in a way that mirrors Holiday's own delivery at this point in her life, and when the two of them occupy the same phrase, as they do through the title track and "Darn That Dream," neither competes with the other. Harry Edison's muted trumpet sits further back, Barney Kessel's guitar fills space without crowding it, Jimmy Rowles plays piano with the kind of patience that lets Holiday phrase behind the beat without ever feeling unsupported, and Red Mitchell holds the bass lines steady underneath. Alvin Stoller and Larry Bunker split the drum chair, Stoller on four tracks and Bunker on the other four. The repertoire is all standards: three Gershwin songs, "Moonlight In Vermont," "Gee, Baby, Ain't I Good To You" and "Comes Love" among them.

These sessions produced eighteen tracks in a week. Eight went to Body and Soul, released in 1957; ten more appeared the following year on Songs for Distingué Lovers. Together, they represent the last sustained stretch of recording brilliance in Holiday's career. She died in July 1959, two and a half years after these sessions. Granz supervised the originals on his Verve label, and Chad Kassem supervised this Acoustic Sounds reissue. Ryan Smith mastered the reissue at Sterling Sound, and the pressing comes from Quality Record Pressings, Kassem's own plant. This is a mono pressing on 180g vinyl, housed in a Stoughton tip-on gatefold with the series insert.