Billie Holiday-Lady In Satin (1958)

Billie Holiday is one of the great divas of jazz; it has been said that her voice changed the art of singing forever. Her life was always turbulent; from childhood, Holiday had a difficult and tumultuous life. Her artistic career began when she was almost a teenager in the early 1930s, singing in seedy clubs in New York. Some time later, thanks to her manipulation of phrasing and vocal style, she released her first recorded song, "Your Mother's Son-In-Law" (1933), which earned her some prestige in the city's jazz circles. From then on, her collaborations with legends like Count Basie, Lester Young, and Artie Shaw, among many others, were constant, resulting in dozens of immortal recordings. However, her tumultuous personal and emotional life took its toll, with alcohol and drug use leading to many problems, including a year in prison for heroin possession. In 1958, she released her penultimate album before her death, "Lady in Satin", with arrangements and orchestra by Ray Ellis. On this album, the singer, in a lamentable state of health, exhausted and utterly devastated by her addictions, managed to capture her tremendous vulnerability in a series of songs. Her broken, hoarse voice conveyed a powerful and overwhelming emotional intensity, blending the melancholy and bittersweet sorrows of her life with a certain indulgence and joy. Without a doubt, this was the best epitaph for one of the great storytellers in the history of jazz and contemporary music.