Lady Sings The Blues
THE ACCLAIMED CELEBRATION OF THE
MUSIC OF BILLIE HOLIDAY
featuring
VAL WISEMAN (vocals)
DIGBY FAIRWEATHER (trumpet)
ROY WILLIAMS (trombone)
ALAN BARNES (tenor sax/clarinet)
BRIAN DEE (piano)
PAT McCARTHY (guitar)
LEN SKEAT (bass)
BOBBY WORTH (drums)
Alongside Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, Billie Holiday is one of the great American popular icons, their names immortalised by their premature and tragic deaths. This fascination of Billie has created an insatiable demand for her work.
Originally conceived as a feature concert in the 1987 Birmingham International Jazz Festival, Lady Sings The Blues appeals to a wider audience than most other jazz concerts. The current interest in Billie Holiday is colossal - manifested in the constant use of her voice to sell products on TV, her still-impressive record sales and the constant flow of books about her life.
Lady Sings The Blues provides a unique opportunity to hear her music as Billie would have performed it on stage. It is the closest any of us will ever get to being present at a performance by the greatest jazz singer of all time.
The combination of a great jazz singer, world-class soloists and the wonderful Billie Holiday song-book has consistently proved Lady Sings The Blues to be a crowd-pleaser from the top drawer.
This is no ordinary concert, but a lovingly-created tribute to the finest of all jazz singers, performed brilliantly, movingly and sensitively by an exceptional group of award-winning musicians and a most remarkable jazz singer.
"An evening with seven of Europe's finest jazz musicians and a most remarkable jazz singer"
- Dave Gelly, The Observer
“Val Wiseman giving an uncanny reproduction of the Holiday style and sound. Arrangements based on the original records but with solos often surpassing the old masters.” - Allen Saddler, The Guardian
“This British singer is in a class of her own ... great feeling, vocal accomplishment and controlled timing. The sidemen are outstanding, their names alone say enough.” - Music Review, Freiburg, Germany
“Val is one of the few singers who could even attempt the
(Billie Holiday) role.” - The Daily Telegraph
The two hour concert show (plus intermission) parades some thirty songs from the wonderful Billie Holiday repertoire, including many that are all-too-frequently ignored. They are presented chronologically through the 30s, 40s and 50s, many featuring the original arrangements, and performed with so much style and vitality that you might almost be there. New York City. November 1933. When it all began: The Billie Holiday Legend.
THE LEGEND
BILLIE HOLIDAY was born in Baltimore, Maryland 1915, and died in New York City 1959. Incredibly, four decades later, she sells more recordings than any other jazz attraction, a legacy that would certainly have appealed to her sense of humour. It was not always like that, certainly not during her lifetime. But there is something indefinably and undeniably compelling about Billie’s music that still reaches out unerringly across the generations. For 60 years she has been cherished by jazz-lovers, each feeling that she was their own personal discovery, and that they somehow had this special relationship with her. Billie’s songs do that to you.
Amazingly, the Lady Day phenomenon has swelled over the years rather than diminished. Mature concert-goers discovered her through the factually-awry Diana Ross movie. The romanticised Billie myth of a woman dragged down by drugs, drink, prostitution and unsuitable men has provided the bedrock for innumerable theatrical productions, while TV documentaries have made several forays into Billie territory .. and still those old recordings continue to dominate the jazz charts.
Could it just be that what people really want is simply to get close to her music, unfettered by Hollywood’s cloying sentimentality in its preoccupation with her convoluted private life?
We think so, and so do the thousands of people who have enjoyed Lady Sings The Blues since its conception in 1987.
The show can be seen headlining at such key venues as London’s Barbican Hall and at concerts, festivals and on Radio and TV throughout the UK and Europe. The first CD brought wide critical acclaim and was chosen as Jazz CD Of The Year by CD Review.
Lady Sings The Blues is the most moving and memorable jazz experience in the UK today.