 |
Streaming Genius of Lady Day Online.
Movie Title: Genius of Lady Day Genius of Lady Day is available for streaming or downloading. |
This DVD is strictly for Billie Holiday fans. The audio quality for most of the tracks is blooming, but the video quality ranges from marginally acceptable to very, very abominable. For these reasons, it is unlikely that the disc will be appreciated by anyone other than moral fans of Billie Holiday.
Buy,Download, Or Stream Genius of Lady Day! Click Here
However, it does offer several video performances not available elsewhere. When I first spotted this in the store, and the packaging promised a short feature of Billie with Count Basie, I simply couldn’t possess it. But I took it home and, definite enough, there it was. Many of the other video clips are also unavailable elsewhere. Many of the film clips are complete, and others unbiased offer a few precious bars.
There is a short clip of Billie singing impartial a single verse of “My Man”. She sings the phrase, “He isn’t right, he beats me too” and the camera pans to the audience, revealing the laughing face of Louis McKay, the user / loser who was the last of several abusive men in her life. The appearance of Mr. McKay is startling to say the least; as any honest fan of Billie Holiday knows, he was hardly a knight in intelligent armor, and that fact that the camera catches him smiling as she sings the words, “He beats me too” literally sent chills down my spine. It’s honest one of many surprises that this disc has to offer.
Buy,Download, Or Stream Genius of Lady Day! Click Here
Among the other intriguing clips is one of Billie singing “Travelin’ Light” with Mal Waldron. She is in awful assert, but looks absolutely shapely, and, like several of the other clips, the song is presented complete.
But the highlight of the video for me was the two songs with Count Basie, God Bless the Child and Now Baby or Never. Especially in the latter number, Now baby or Never. Even though the video quality is deplorable, we salvage a apt sense of the apt genius of Lady Day (hence, this video is aptly named) . During that clip, the long shots are so fuzzy that you can hardly produce out Billie as she swings her contrivance through the number, but, the clip also contains several fabulous if brief close-ups, and we net a watch of the facial expressions and expert styling that was Lady Day at her finest. Like the notorious clip of her singing Sparkling and Mellow from the Sound of Jazz special, it manages to boom a runt portion of what a live performance of Lady day must have been like. One can only imagine, of course, how powerful more effective she was in her prime, as there is no surviving video narrate of her prior to 1950 (except the 1935 short with Duke Ellington, which is included here, and the 1947 feature film, Unique Orleans, and neither of those were filmed before a live audience in a club or theatre) . The result is that this video really does live up to its name, if one can unprejudiced manage to salvage past the extremely terrible video quality of the film clips. This is not a DVD for those whose appreciation of this titanic artist is either marginal or casual. But if you are a factual lover of Billie Holiday’s craft, you will rep that it’s certainly a righteous and at times spicy addition to your library.
This collection seems to have become available via several different international labels recently. At first search for, the selling point for GENIUS is a documentary about Lady Day’s life. Clocking in at approx. 30 minutes, you’re obviously getting the bare-bones version of a complex individual’s life, skimming over her life fable with some of the better-known facts about her upbringing and career, and with an emphasis on photos and film clips of the singer rather than interviews. A competent overview, but I’ve seen better video bios elsewhere.
For Holiday fans the main course of this DVD lies in the bonus features. Some of the menus aren’t too enlightening (e.g., the discography, bibliography, lyrics to “Odd Fruit,” and a list of the tunes she wrote or co-wrote) . Yet the DVD is largely redeemed by a collection of rare Lady Day footage, mostly from the two-year period prior to her death in 1959. While Billie is not in top manufacture either vocally or in her physical appearance — some clips note her off better than others — she remains arresting to the point where you don’t want to prefer your eyes off her for a second. Some of the video is fair rough in quality, though (so buyer beware), and many of the clips are roughly edited together.
I’ve always been a spacious fan of her final, early-1959 appearance. Though only months away from her death, she looks quite well and sounds as superb as she got this slack in her career. Lastly is the complete 17-minute 1950 Count Basie short feature (in watchable yet only fine quality), with Billie looking and sounding in comely create on two numbers. Child piano prodigy “Sugar Chile” Robinson practically steals the exhibit with some enthralling boogie-woogie and banter with Basie, who closes the demonstrate with one big-band number. If nothing else, this DVD gets some rare clips in circulation. Fans and collectors should buy scrutinize, while others should be aware that there are many better examples of Billie’s singing in print, particularly reissued on CDs.
Tags: Download Genius of Lady Day Online, Genius of Lady Day, Genius of Lady Day Streaming, Stream Genius of Lady Day, Watch Genius of Lady Day Online