<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Review: As an avid Billie Holiday fan, I can honestly say that this video is WONDERFUL! I was very happy to see the rare footage throughout her career. It really brought tears to my eyes watching her living out all the emotions she was going through in her songs. She was an incredibly talented woman who was very much ahead of her time. I recommend this video to her fans because this is a real treat, it is just too good for words.
Rating:
Summary: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Review: As an avid Billie Holiday fan, I can honestly say that this video is WONDERFUL! I was very happy to see the rare footage throughout her career. It really brought tears to my eyes watching her living out all the emotions she was going through in her songs. She was an incredibly talented woman who was very much ahead of her time. I recommend this video to her fans because this is a real treat, it is just too good for words.
Rating:
Summary: If Your A Fan......
Review: Billie Holiday is a figure of her time and this movie just about justifies that statment. Although the footage isent anything out of the ordinary...including 'Strange Fruit', the infamous 'Fine annd Mellow' and a personal favorite 'Please Don't Talk About me When I'm gone'. She shows no real emotion during these short performances, but you can tell what she is thinking and feeling, during them. Excellent quality of the footages.....the conersations with the , also late great, Carmen McRae are fun to watch too. I WOULD DEFINATLEY get this DVD/VIDEO if I were you. Im only 15, I LOVE THIS MUSIC---and this women. Enjoy! Highly Recommended. (Now there are movies on Lady Day and Ella Fitzgerald....WHERE'S THE VIDEO ON DINAH WASHINGTON????) =)
Rating:
Summary: Lady Day Revealed
Review: I had bought this video a few years back, and I must say that I was so glad that FINALLY they revealed this wonderful performer. To see this video brings Billie Holiday to life -- her brassiness, her vulnerability, her talents and her tragedy. It was a loss to the jazz world. I highly recommend adding this video to you collection.
Rating: 
Summary: Kultur, this time you missed it!
Review: If you are interested in the (ever fashionable) approach to Jazz, via the contemporary interpretation of the social environment in which the Jazz artists created, then there is a good chance you may like this DVD. However, if real footage is what you are after, this DVD may well disappoint you too. In this latter case I strongly suggest you spend your money on "The Ladies Sing the Blues" DVD. Being interested in a combination of real footage and adept commentary I got disappointed on both ends. In the whole DVD, there are at most three incomplete songs where Lady Day actually sings, yet there are a few too many (poor taste) instances when her voiced dubs some disconnected Jazz players/dancers. As well, in addition to some general socio-historical vignettes, I found the commentary to be just a suite of encomiums with no critical side to it.
Rating: 
Summary: Only 2 problems with this video - too short and not enough!!
Review: It's too bad they waited so long to make this video; would have been perfect if they had been able to speak to Count Basie, Artie Shaw and (most importantly) Louis Armstrong. However, they have done a great deal of research and unearthed (!) some fascinating footage I have never seen before. So what is lost in live interviews with people she knew and worked with is helped by actually seeing Billie Holiday at different stages. I highly reccomend this video, especially anyone who has seen "that" movie,("Lady Sings the Blues")and felt as dissapointed with it as I was! Buy this video,you won't regret it!
Rating:
Summary: Only 2 problems with this video - too short and not enough!!
Review: It's too bad they waited so long to make this video; would have been perfect if they had been able to speak to Count Basie, Artie Shaw and (most importantly) Louis Armstrong. However, they have done a great deal of research and unearthed (!) some fascinating footage I have never seen before. So what is lost in live interviews with people she knew and worked with is helped by actually seeing Billie Holiday at different stages. I highly reccomend this video, especially anyone who has seen "that" movie,("Lady Sings the Blues")and felt as dissapointed with it as I was! Buy this video,you won't regret it!
Rating:
Summary: SO INFLUENTIAL!!!!
Review: This Billie Holiday album was like a ray of light to me when I first listened to it! It's so inspiring! You can see why so many artists of today are influenced by it! The music really took me to the borderline. I thank my lucky star that this album came along.
Rating:
Summary: SO INFLUENTIAL!!!!
Review: This Billie Holiday album was like a ray of light to me when I first listened to it! It's so inspiring! You can see why so many artists of today are influenced by it! The music really took me to the borderline. I thank my lucky star that this album came along.
Rating:
Summary: It's About Time
Review: This video would be worth the money if only for the inclusion of that legendary performance of "Fine And Mellow" for the Sound Of Jazz t.v. special -- probably THE most transcendent moment in music history! The commentary by Milt Gabler during this scene ("They were all champions . . . and SHE was a champion!") and by Billie's former colleagues and admirers throughout this video are distinguished by their intelligence and warmth. For example, the precious and aged Buck Clayton describing his trumpeting behind Billie as simply "filling up the windows". And the insights of the late, great and utterly dignified Carmen McRae are particularly invaluable. I cried more than a few times watching this beautiful documentary and recommend it highly. It's all we have on Billie, and God knows how we need her.
<< 1 >>
| 
