Billie Holiday - Velvet Mood (1977 Japanese Verve Mono Reissue Vinyl LP)

Billie Holiday - Velvet Mood | Vinyl LP - 1977 Japanese Verve Records Mono Reissue (MV 2596, Immortal Jazz On Verve VIII series)

• Drawn from two days of recording in Los Angeles in August 1955 that produced enough material for two albums, this one and Music for Torching, with the same small group across both sessions.
• Harry “Sweets” Edison on trumpet, Benny Carter on alto saxophone, Jimmy Rowles on piano, Barney Kessel on guitar, John Simmons on bass and Larry Bunker on drums: a West Coast session group hand-picked by Norman Granz.
• 1977 Japanese mono reissue in the Immortal Jazz On Verve VIII series. Manufactured by Polydor K.K. Originally released on Clef (MG C-713).

Norman Granz recorded Billie Holiday over two sessions in Hollywood on August 23 and 25, 1955. The day before the first date, Holiday and pianist Jimmy Rowles rehearsed more than twenty songs. Rowles had first met Holiday fifteen years earlier, when he was playing in Lester Young’s group, and the rapport between them is all over these recordings. The tracks run longer than usual for a Holiday Verve session. “Prelude to a Kiss” stretches past five minutes. “I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues” runs to nearly six. Holiday’s voice at this point in her career had lost some of its range and flexibility, but what replaced it was a directness that made every phrase land harder. She was forty. She knew what these songs were about. Benny Carter, who had been recording with Holiday since a Teddy Wilson session in 1936, plays alto saxophone with an elegance that matches her phrasing note for note. The rest of the group follows suit: Edison’s muted trumpet, Kessel’s quiet guitar, Simmons and Bunker holding time.

The two sessions produced sixteen tracks in total. The first eight went to Music for Torching, released in 1955. The remaining eight became Velvet Mood, released the following year on Clef. The difference between the two albums is more about sequencing than sound. Both records share the same intimate, after-hours quality that Granz was aiming for. Rowles also plays celesta on “I Hadn’t Anyone Till You”, “Everything I Have Is Yours” and “What’s New?”, adding a delicate, slightly ghostly colour that suits the material. The repertoire is all standards: Ellington’s “Prelude to a Kiss”, the Gershwins’ “Nice Work If You Can Get It”, Ray Noble’s “I Hadn’t Anyone Till You”. Holiday makes each one sound as if she’s telling you something privately. This copy is the 1977 Japanese mono reissue on Verve, manufactured by Polydor K.K. as part of the Immortal Jazz On Verve series.