Widely regarded as the greatest of jazz vocalists, Holiday’s genius was to instill a lyric with a depth of feeling. Her most stunning period of achievement was the thirties and early forties when she received accompaniment from Teddy Wilson, Lester Young and others. Holiday’s later years were marred by drug problems and her records were consequently uneven in quality. Holiday moved to New York as a teenager and took her first singing jobs in the early thirties, record producer  John Hammond,  impressed  with  her  vocal  abilities,  got Holiday her first recording session with Benny Goodman.

   In 1935 she recorded ‘What a Little Moonlight Can Do’, the first of eighty tracks she made for the Brunswick and Vocalion labels over a period of three years. On many of the sessions she was accompanied by leading jazz soloists like Johnny Hodges and Lester Young, who gave her the name Lady Day. Several of the songs, ‘Mean to Me’, ‘When You’re Smiling’, ‘I Cried for You’ and ‘Fine and Mellow’ went on to become hits.
   In live performance Holiday sang with both Artie Shaw and Count Basie. Holiday’s other recordings from this period include ‘God Bless the Child’, ‘Gloom Sunday’ and ‘I Cover the Waterfront’. Holiday signed with Decca records in 1944, and her records followed the label’s pop-orientated policy, tracks such as ‘Lover Man’, ‘Don’t Explain’ and ‘Porgy’ were outstanding. Her first major solo concert took place at New York Town Hall in 1946 but the following year Holiday was convicted for drugs offences, spending nearly a year in jail.         
   On her release she resumed a solo career that found her erratic in live performance. Her recording activity received a boost when she was signed to Verve records in 1952. The Verve recordings documented both the peaks and lows of her final years and were reissued in ten volumes. Among the highlights were a concert with Count Basie, ‘Songs for Torching’, ‘Velvet Mood’ and ‘Songs for Distingué Lovers’.