Greatest Singer of All Time

I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That's all I know. ~Billie Holiday

If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all. ~Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday was the greatest singer of all time bar none! That is a statement I make with unabashed certainty. If you are so foolish as to disagree with me, we are going to dance, not dance as in bodies swaying in rhythm to the sultry tunes rolling off Billie's tongue in a dimly lit, smoky night club where we are dressed to the nines in our finest silks and skins with saxophone and piano filling in the spaces between the vocals while the body of a loved ones press tightly so you can feel the smooth curves at her hips as they sway to the beat and taste the salty sweat crystallizing on skin, dance as in rumble, as in boxing, as in I'm going to slap you upside the head until you finally lose that which is blinding you to the obviousness of my statement. There has been and is no one that can carry a tune with her verve, that can make a song her own the way Billie did time and again. Have you heard her sing "Willow Weep For Me", a song written specifically for her to sing? Have you heard others attempt to own the song the way she did? If so, then my opening statement should be self evident.

If I could go back in time and hear any one singer live, I would go back to hear Billie Holiday. I would love to go back to see her at the mic, gardenia in her hair, wearing one of her long, fitted dresses, body swaying slightly as pearls flow from the depths of her soul and find their way into our hearts. There is no one else that can or could have come close to her. Not Ella Fitzgerald, not Nina Simone, not Frank Sinatra, not Bono, not Pavarotti, not no one can hold a candle to the magic in her voice.

I was strolling through the city last week when I saw an advertisement on the placard outside the Symphony Center Chicago music hall calling out an upcoming concert titled, "To Billie with Love: A Celebration of Lady Day featuring Dee Dee Bridgewater on vocals." Dee Dee played Billie in the theatrical production Lady Day so, I figured, she has to be really good. No Billie mind you because there will never be another Billie but a passable replica that will help transport me back to yesteryear and allow me to imagine sitting in the audience as Billie unleashed silky smooth honey from her lips.

Orchestra Hall Cheap Seats

As soon as I got home, I hoped on line and ordered tickets. The concert was only a week out so most of the good seats were already taken leaving me in the upper balcony, the Uecker seats, seats so high that it's possible my nose will bleed in the thin air before the night is over. But I didn't care because I was going to be in at a concert honoring Billie, I was going to be with like minded Billie fans closing their eyes and dreaming of being serenaded by the greatest vocalist to ever have graced this planet.

Orchestra Hall Stage

The concert was great. Dee Dee didn't sing in the vein I expected, she didn't croon slow and sultry, she didn't roll lyrics off her tongue that wafted slowly to the rafters on the light currents of her exhaled breath. Dee Dee belted out vocals in her rich voice that shot to the upper balcony as though discharged from a cannon, she sang jazzed up vocals accompanied by her four piece band complete with a piano, bass, drums, and a tenor sax that was out of this world. She sang Billie's songs in the style of Ella Fitzgerald. That combination alone is ironic because, from what I have read in one of her many biographies, Billie did not like Ella so, to arrange her songs in the style of someone she did not like, in some ways, is a disservice to the memory of Billie.

Dee Dee Bridgewater

But, Dee Dee pulled it off. Dee Dee made those songs hers just as Billie used to stylize songs to suit her personality, her way of singing. In that respect, Dee Dee sang with the confident attitude of a modern day Billie Holiday.