rec date	type	#	discography	tk	rec time
1958	MT	308	Lady In Satin	11	3'22"

Dear Paulo,

 

  With the possible exception of Coltrane's A Love Supreme, no jazz album has suffered more from well-meant but vacuous out-pourings of its admirers than Billie Holiday's Lady in Satin.  When I get in a certain frisky mood I'll hop into the on-line reviews of this album as an exercise is seeing how music criticism should not be written.  Look at this gem (from: http://www.amazon.com/review/RS7Y6JZG3ZO9C/ref=cm_srch_res_rtr_alt_1 ):

                 '"I'll Be Around" gives Billie another opportunity to explore
              the pain of how she must wait for a man who she hopes will
              come to love her someday. Billie's interpretation of "I'll Be 
              Around" glistens like pure gold and the musical arrangement
              shines, too.'

Maybe my synethesia isn't working this week, but I simply have no clue what an "interpretation . . . [that] glistens like pure gold" sounds like.

   At least part of the problem is that folks approach Lady in Satin as an autobiographical statement about Holiday rather than as a work of musical craft by her.  She's a jazz singer, and one thing all good jazz singers do is change things in songs.  In her version of "I'll Be Around," I count at least eighteen changes Holiday made to the music and/or words as originally composed by Alec Wilder:

I’ll Be Around--Billie Holiday, 1958

KEY:
Underscoring = sung  on two (or more) notes, where originally
   there was only a single note
Italics =  added word/words or word changed [or dropped] from original;
   if word changed, original word in parentheses ( ) to the right
[word] = word omitted from original lyric

I’ll be around
no matter how
you treat me now;
I’ll be around                                                   1
from now on.

Your latest love
can never last
and when it’s past,
I’ll be around                                                   2
when she’s gone.

Goodbye, again,
and if you find a love like mine,                         3
just now and then                                            4
drop a line to say you’re feeling fine.

And when things go wrong                               5
perhaps you’ll see
you’re meant for me,                                       6
and I’ll be around                                            7 (so), 8
when she’s gone.

Goodbye, again,
and if you find a love like mine,                       9
just now and then                                         10
drop me a line, [to] say you’re feeling mighty fine.        11, [12], 13

When things go wrong
perhaps you’ll see
you’re meant for me,                                   14
and I’ll be around                                        15 (so), 16
when she’s gone--
when she’s gone.                                        17, 18

 
Of the eighteen changes I've marked, eleven--all the underscored words--involve Holiday adding either a note or a down-glide to a word that, in the original version of the song, is sung as a single syllable on a single note.
   Another musical tradition--not jazz--calls this process ornamenting a melody. Maybe you'll have noticed that the words Holiday chose to ornament fall into two groups: those referring to the singer of the song (I'll; mine; me) and those referring to a hoped for/desired/dreamed of time (then; when) of renewed contact or renewed availability of the beloved.  Holiday's interpretative strategy for this song is to emphasize exactly this relation between the yearning singer and the yearned-for time.
   The effect this emphasis has on the meaning of the song is perhaps most readily understood by comparing Holiday's versions of "I'll be Around" to the versions of other singers.  Mildred Bailey's 1942 version emphasizes the singer's determination.  Peggy Lee's 1962 version the singer's vulnerability.  In contrast, Holiday hints at an enormous additional burden on both the singer and the singer's fantasy that waiting entails.  I find her version the most poignant of any I've heard.

  There's only a few additional points I want to make, though I cannot fully develop them here.  First, it's obvious to me that what Holiday did in "I'll Be Around" is a deliberate strategy.  It is NOT some direct outpouring of emotion but a very carefully constructed way of singing a song aimed at evoking a certain emotional response.  Second--and this is related to the first--Holiday's approach to the song is holistic in that it treats the song as a unified entity.  It's not as if some part of the song expresses determination, another fear, another whatever--but the effect of the whole is achieved by deliberate, subtle changes that are coordinate. This was a constant strategy in Holiday's work. Third, Holiday's approach to "I'll be Around" is absolutely unique and original.  If you listen to how other singers try to interpret the song, you'll hear them playing around with the timing and relative emphasis in phrases like "I'll be around" (Cf. especially Little Willie John--I'LL BE--around; and Tony Bennett's tag: "I'll BE around--I'll--be around--I'll--Be--Around from now on.")  Holiday is the only singer I've ever heard in the 67-year recording history of the song who modifies its meaning by relying largely on ornament.  It's a technique she learned, I think, from listening to Bessie Smith's recordings, and used earlier in her career as well--and to very good effect (in such recordings as the 1937 "I Must have That Man," where she moved first from the imperative "MUST have" of all earlier singers to the possessive "must HAVE" of her first two readings of the title line in her solo to the seductive "must HA-AVE" of her third reading of the title).

 

Best,

Joe Styles

Los Angeles, California