I would expect that at least they could have found a child with the same coloring as Holiday. Like all documentaries there is never enough music and with a woman such as Billie who lived an expansive life in 44 years it would be impossible for one feature length film to cover everything. Instead we hear the voices of personal friends and colleagues who often played with Holiday, such as Count Basie and Artie Shaw. [7][3][8] Her archive on Holiday included these interviews on 125 audio tapes[8] as well as "a long paper trail, including police files, transcripts of court cases, royalty statements, shopping lists, hospital records, private letters, muddled transcripts and fragments of unfinished chapters. } setTimeout(function () { captainformCustomVars['772605'] = ''; Eleven years after Billie Holiday died at the age of 44, from heart failure due to drug and alcohol abuse, journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl, a Lady Day devotee, interviewed as many people as. [2] Raw and brutally honest, incredible testimonies from Charles Mingus, Sarah . Theres also a clip of her role as Endie in the 1947 film New Orleans., Because Billie is told in chronological order of her life, the documentary has a very easy narrative to follow. [3] She interviewed almost 200 peoplefriends, family members, band members, peers from 1930s Harlem, piano players, psychiatrists and a pimpand was still finding people in 1978. For eight years in the 1970s, a journalist named Linda Lipnack Kuehl researched a biography of Billie Holiday, interviewing as many of the great jazz chanteuse's friends, relatives and . Shaw, bassist Sid Weiss, guitarist Al Arola, guitarist Les Robinson and friend Mae Weiss all mention in their documentary interviews that many racist people back then refused to accept a black female singer performing with a group of white musicians. else if ('' == 'right') [3]. function resize77260563c877fb82c45(wrapper){ She was 38. Eleanors favorite curse words were motherfucker and cocksucker., By all accounts, Eleanor started working as a housecleaner/maid before she was a teenager. Kuehl spoke to musicians, obviously, like Shaw and Tony Bennett, but also to more obscure figures those involved in her drug busts and the man who acted as her pimp when she was a teen. A snippet plays in the new documentary Billie, a . window.addEventListener('resize', function(){ Crisp colorized film footage of Holiday with the Count Basie Orchestra from 1950 shows us why she was called the greatest jazz singer ever during her life and now over 100 years after her birth. Be the first to contribute! There never was a black critic in swing music. Her make-up is minimal. During the famous 1957 Sound of Jazz television recording of Fine & Mellow others have described Holidays face as smacked out on drugs or liquor; instead, this film makes it clear that the ecstasy on Holidays face is from hearing the sounds of her musical soulmate saxophonist Lester Young play. var wrapper = jQuery('#captainformForm772605EmbedPopup63c877fb82c45'); }; } Get a load of the critics, the people who judge our music. As much as Holiday was the first master of microphone singing, she is also a master of the camera. Her body as usual is still as a statue; only her hands wave occasionally in small restrained circles. formId: '772605' }); John Fagan, a cousin of Holidays, says in the documentary of their upbringing in East Baltimore: It was a nice community to live. elementType: "script", Holidays career spanned 30 years. She recorded from her teens until her untimely death in 1959 at age 44. The film highlights a review that scathingly derides Billie for being heavy reminding us that draconian female standards of beauty have been around for a long time. if (document.getElementById('captainform_js_global_vars') == null) { Billie certainly encompassed both requirements. Milt Hilton, a bass player who worked with Holiday during her last music recording sessions, remembers: She was in pretty bad shape. He took many of the widely published photos of her during these last sessions. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. }); They are particularly pertinent, showing what kind of child she was and what the neighborhood was like for poor African Americans. (document.removeEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",d),window.removeEventListener("load",d)):(document.detachEvent("onreadystatechange",d),window.detachEvent("onload",d))},d=function(){t||!document.addEventListener&&"load"!==event.type&&"complete"!==document.readyState||(t=!0,n(),e())};if("complete"===document.readyState)e();else if(document.addEventListener)document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",d),window.addEventListener("load",d);else{document.attachEvent("onreadystatechange",d),window.attachEvent("onload",d);var o=!1;try{o=null==window.frameElement&&document.documentElement}catch(a){}o&&o.doScroll&&!function c(){if(!t){try{o.doScroll("left")}catch(d){return setTimeout(c,50)}t=!0,n(),e()}}()}}; }; Find Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok profiles, images and more on IDCrawl - free people search website. Function: _error_handler, File: /home/ah0ejbmyowku/public_html/application/views/page/index.php captainformDomReady(function() { var wrapper = jQuery('#captainformForm772606EmbedPopup63c877fb829bf'); The most important takeaway from Jo Jones is that anyone who believes music has no color negates the experiences of African American musicians who lived with racism dictating almost every aspect of their lives. BILLIE, directed by James Erskine, is a portrait of legendary singer Billie Holiday based on more than 200 audio interviews conducted by journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl in the 1970s.A compelling look at the jazz legend who should never be forgotten. She changed her last name to Holiday to capitalize on her fathers connection as a guitarist with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, one of the most respected Black Big Bands of its day. [1], File: /home/ah0ejbmyowku/public_html/application/views/user/popup_modal.php [3] The interviews were a major source for the text in Robert O'Meally's book of photographs Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday (1991)[12] and around the same were used for the script for a Masters of American Music series documentary of the same name. Allen shows the cell where Holiday stayed and describes Holiday as quiet and certainly no trouble ever. Wells, African Americans were most often lynched because they were financially successful or not deferential enough. type: "text/javascript", resize77260563c877fb83722(wrapper); KUEHLLinda (Lipnack). Her scholarly papers on Billie Holiday include: Two Gardenias for Civil Rights: Robin Carsons photo of Billie Holiday (read it here), This Bitter Earth: Infertility for Billie, Ella and Sarah. View eatdrinkfilmsmags profile on Instagram, View eatdrinkfilmssos profile on Pinterest, BILLIE documentary is Actually Linda Kuehl on Billie. popupTrigger.click(function(){ captainform_preload_form_popup(popupParams); Presentations and performance on Billie Holiday include: Rethinking Billie Holiday on her Centennial (Google Talk), Blues Legacies and Black Feminism with Angela Davis (SFJAZZ), Your email address will not be published. Holidays eyes plead, her lips sneer and her single eyebrow rises suggestively and reproachfully. He was 18, she was 16, and I was three" - but was also full of inaccuracies. 05 January 2023. if ('' == 'left') She had not performed with nor seen him in years and her delight is plain. This is not to say that there is no filmed footage. Required fields are marked *. Her face is an actress as much as her voice. Linda Lipnack Kuehl (January 24, 1940 - February 6, 1978) was an American arts journalist, based in New York City. Over 8 years, she tracked down and tape-recorded over 200 hours of interviews with the extraordinary characters that populated the iconic singer's short, tumultuous life. [4], She was a Jewish feminist[5] and a fan of Billie Holiday. At times the interviews use words that grate on modern ears. She also got a lot of abuse and harassment from racists they encountered. Jimmy Fletcher, an African American who was a narcotics agent for the FBI at the time, says that Holidays agent Joe Glaser worked with the FBI to arrest her in a drug bust for her own good., According to Fletcher, He [Glaser] confided in me that he wanted to save her. textContent: 'var frmRef=""; try { frmRef=window.top.location.href; } catch(err) {}; var captainform_servicedomain="app.captainform.com";var cfJsHost = "https://";', Lipstick and brow pencil are the hallmark features. Oral history is only as good as the interviewer and Kuehl, a very attractive white woman, put her interviewees at ease by interviewing them most often in bars where they worked and turning off the microphone when asked. The director James Erskine does a great job inserting commentary during relevant moments. There were reports that McKay was very controlling and unscrupulous when it came to Holidays finances. Talk:Linda Lipnack Kuehl - Wikipedia Talk:Linda Lipnack Kuehl This article is of interest to the following WikiProjects : Start a discussion about improving the Linda Lipnack Kuehl page Talk pages are where people discuss how to make content on Wikipedia the best that it can be. Cafe Society owner Barney Josephson says that it wasnt unusual for white customers to walk out of the club and complain if Holiday performed the song. resize77260663c877fb829bf(wrapper); For news, music (including some previously unreleased live recordings), complete discography, videos and much more visitKims websiteand many more performances can be found on herYouTube channel. if('' == 'floating') { According to Ida B. Dr. James Hamilton, a psychiatrist who interviewed Holiday when she was in prison, had this diagnosis of her. John Levy became her manager and lover, even though he was married at the time. The documentary includes stories of people witnessing McKay (whos been described as a mafia enforcer) being physically abusive to Holiday. Over the next decade, she tracked down and tape-recorded hundreds of hours of interviews with the extraordinary characters that populated the iconic singer's short, tumultuous life. Like the singer she idolized and identified with, Linda Lipnack Kuehl had her own bad habits, failed relationships and dreams unfulfilled.