For the majority of the 1950s, Billie Holiday was signed to jazz producer Norman Granz's Clef Records, which was later absorbed into the newly founded Verve Records by 1956. All of her work for Norman Granz consisted of small jazz combos, reuniting her with musicians she recorded with back in the 1930s when she made her first recordings with Teddy Wilson. There were talks in the early 1950s of Holiday making albums, or songbooks, dedicated to composers such as George and Ira Gershwin and Jerome Kern, but they fell through and ended up going to Ella Fitzgerald when she signed to Verve. By 1957, Holiday had recorded twelve albums for Granz and was unhappy. Therefore, she decided not to renew her contract.
By October 1957, Holiday contacted Columbia producer Irving Townsend and expressed interest in recording with bandleader Ray Ellis. Originally, she wanted to do an album with bandleader Nelson Riddle after hearing his arrangements for Frank Sinatra's albums, particularly In the Wee Small Hours, but after hearing Ellis's version of "For All We Know", she wanted to record with him. When Holiday came to Townsend about the album, he was surprised:
It would be like Ella Fitzgerald saying that she wanted to record with Ray Conniff. But she said she wanted a pretty album, something delicate. She said this over and over. She thought it would be beautiful. She wasn't interested in some wild swinging jam session...She wanted that cushion under her voice. She wanted to be flattered by that kind of sound.[2]
Townsend got in touch with Ellis about the album. Ellis, having heard Holiday's work throughout the 1930s and 1940s, was excited for the project, saying, "I couldn't believe it...I didn't know she was aware of me."[3] Townsend arranged a meeting for both Holiday and Ellis to sign a contract with Columbia. Columbia provided an unlimited budget for the album. The musicians in the orchestra were paid $60 for the three sessions and Holiday was paid $150 per side in advance. Townsend went on to set up the recording dates for late February 1958.
Content
When Holiday signed her contract for Columbia, the label looked at it as a new beginning, for this was her return to the label after sixteen years. During Holiday's time with Norman Granz's label, she revisited old material she had previously recorded and songs that were well known in her repertoire, such as "My Man", "Lover, Come Back to Me", "I Cover the Waterfront", "Them There Eyes" and "I Only Have Eyes for You". Columbia wanted Holiday to do an album of songs she had never recorded before,[4] so the material for Lady in Satin derived from the usual sources for Holiday in her three-decade career, that of the Great American Songbook of classic pop. Also, unlike the bulk of Holiday's recordings with Norman Granz and her early years at Columbia in the 1930s and early 1940s, rather than in the setting of a jazz combo Holiday returns to the backdrop of full orchestral arrangements as done during her Decca years eight years earlier. She wanted the album to be in the same contemporary vein of Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald on her Song Books series.
Ray Ellis made his arrangements of the songs to match Holiday's voice. By the mid- to late-1950s, Holiday's voice had changed drastically due to years of alcohol and drug abuse, altering its texture and giving it a fragile, raspy sound. Despite her voice's condition, its distinctive edge had not been lost, and the style of phrasing that had made her a popular jazz singer remained at her command. Ray Ellis said of Holiday's voice:
I heard her voice [and] I dug it. I was in love with that voice and I was picturing a very evil, sensuous, sultry, very evil...probably one of the most evil voices I've heard in my life...Evil is earthy to me. When you say someone is evil, it means very, very bad. I don't mean bad.[5]
Ellis used a 40-piece orchestra, complete with horns, strings, reeds and even a three-piece choir. It would turn out to be Holiday's most expensive music production. Soloists on the album included Mel Davis, Urbie Green and the beboptrombone pioneer J. J. Johnson.
Reaction to the album has been mixed. Holiday's voice had lost much of its upper range in her 40s, although she still retained her rhythmic phrasing. The Penguin Guide to Jazz gave the album a three-star rating out of a possible four stars, but expressed a basic reservation about the album, describing it as "a voyeuristic look at a beaten woman."[9]The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide said "Lady in Satin presents the Lady overdressed. It's an album from the late Fifties, when much of Billie's punch was gone."[7]
However, the trumpeter Buck Clayton preferred the work of the later Holiday to that of the younger woman that he had often worked with in the 1930s.[10] Ray Ellis said of the album in 1997:
I would say that the most emotional moment was her listening to the playback of "I'm a Fool to Want You". There were tears in her eyes...After we finished the album I went into the control room and listened to all the takes. I must admit I was unhappy with her performance, but I was just listening musically instead of emotionally. It wasn't until I heard the final mix a few weeks later that I realized how great her performance really was.[11]
"The End of a Love Affair" (Edward Redding) – 4:46 [mono]
"I'm a Fool to Want You" [take 3 stereo] – 3:24
"I'm a Fool to Want You" [take 2] – 3:23
"The End of a Love Affair" The Audio Story – 9:49
"The End of a Love Affair" [stereo] – 4:46
[Pause Track] – 0:06
The Centennial Edition
On April 14, 2015, Columbia Records released a three-CD set album, Lady in Satin: The Centennial Edition, a week after the 100th anniversary of Billie Holiday's 100th birthday. Roughly 70 minutes' worth of material—including 13 complete tracks, incomplete tracks, studio chatter, breakdowns, false starts, and warm-ups, are present on the album. Previously, all of it (except for those fragments without Billie Holiday) had been released by Michael Fontannes on his Kangourou/Masters of Jazz Label, Volume 27.[14]
Track listing of The Centennial Edition
CD One
(tracks 1-12 are the songs that appeared on the original 1958 Lady in Satin release)
