Billie Holiday The Musician And The Myth John Szwed by John Szwed 9781101614709, 1101614706 instant download after payment.

Published in celebration of Holiday’s centenary, the first biography to focus on the singer’s extraordinary musical talent

When Billie Holiday stepped into Columbia’s studios in November 1933, it marked the beginning of what is arguably the most remarkable & influential career in twentieth-century popular music. Her voice weathered countless shifts in public taste, & new reincarnations of her continue to arrive, most recently in the form of singers like Amy Winehouse & Adele.

Most of the writing on Holiday has focused on the tragic details of her life—her prostitution at the age of fourteen, her heroin addiction & alcoholism, her series of abusive relationships—or tried to correct the many fabrications of her autobiography. But now, Billie Holiday stays close to the music, to her performance style, & to the self she created & put into print, on record & on stage.

Drawing on a vast amount of new material that has surfaced in the last decade, critically acclaimed jazz writer John Szwed considers how her life inflected her art, her influences, her uncanny voice & rhythmic genius, a number of her signature songs, & her legacy.

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John Szwed is a professor of music & director of the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University. As a jazz musician, he played professionally for more than a decade. He is the author of 16 books, including So What: The Life of Miles Davis, Space is the Place: The Lives & Times of Sun Ra, & Alan Lomax: The Man Who Recorded the World.