Fine and Mellow

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Billie Holiday: 78 record with "Strange Fruit" and "Fine and Mellow" by Commodore Records 1939

Fine and Mellow is a jazz song that Billie Holiday wrote and recorded in 1939.

The song

"Fine and Mellow" is a blues in the 12 bar AAB form. In the text, Holiday laments the treatment of a woman at the hands of her lover, possibly a pimp or crook . The song begins with the verse:

My husband doesn't love me, he treats me very badly.
My husband doesn't love me, he treats me so badly.
He's the worst man I've ever seen.

History of admission and impact

The singer Billie Holiday recorded her composition "Fine and Mellow" for the first time on April 20, 1939; she was accompanied by the Frankie Newton Orchestra, in which u. a. Tab Smith , Sonny White and Eddie Dougherty played. On April 20, 1939 Holiday was able to record four titles. The song was created at the suggestion of producer Milt Gabler ; in Gabler's view, this was "the first truly modern blues session."

The song appeared coupled with their legendary title " Strange Fruit " (as B-side) on the small label Commodore . While Strange Fruit , the drastic charge against the lynching system hit the top 20 on the sales charts, the B-side in the jukeboxes was successful. A cover version of Alberta Hunter published in August 1939, however, had no chance.

The song has since been part of Billie Holidays' repertoire, u. a. on her tours with Jazz at the Philharmonic ; it was reinterpreted by her on December 8, 1957 when she starred for CBS on the television program The Sound of Jazz . She was accompanied by famous jazz musicians who played their solos one after the other: first Ben Webster , followed by Lester Young , Vic Dickenson , Gerry Mulligan , Coleman Hawkins , Roy Eldridge ; also played Doc Cheatham ; the rhythm section was formed by Danny Barker , Milt Hinton , Osie Johnson and Mal Waldron .

"Fine and Mellow" experienced numerous cover versions , so in December 1939 by the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra with the singer Dolores Brown; it was then interpreted u. a. by Ella Fitzgerald , Carmen McRae , Carrie Smith , Jeanie Bryson , Diana Ross , Etta Jones , Ruth Brown , Lou Rawls , Jimmy Rushing , Champion Jack Dupree , Nina Simone or Miriam Klein . Ella Fitzgerald's version, recorded in 1979 with the Count Basie Orchestra at the Montreux Jazz Festival , won the 1980 Grammy Award .

Bertold Klostermann points out that there are almost no instrumental versions of this song; the song is not interpreted , for example, on the holiday tribute albums by Lee Konitz or Herbert Joos : "Without lyrics it's just a blues in F." However, there is an instrumental version by cornetist Ruby Braff .

Billie Holidays versions

Billie Holiday 1947 photographed by William P. Gottlieb

literature

  • Clarke Donald: Billie Holiday - Wishing on the Moon . A biography, Piper Verlag 1995, ISBN 3-492-03756-9
  • Hans-Jürgen Schaal (Ed.): Jazz standards. The encyclopedia. 3rd, revised edition. Bärenreiter, Kassel u. a. 2004, ISBN 3-7618-1414-3 .
  • Manfred Scheffner Bielefeld Catalog Jazz 1985, 1988, 2001

Web links / sources

Remarks

  1. ^ Jacobs, Dick & Harriet. Who Wrote That Song ?, Writers Digest Books (1994) - ISBN 0-89879-639-3 , p. 70
  2. ↑ If “posh pants with yellow stripes” were sung in the song, this is possibly a reference to the “pimps and crooks she was with”. See Julia Blackburn. Billie Holiday Berlin 2006, p. 274
  3. ↑ My man he don't love me he treats me oh so mean / My man he don't love me he treats me oh so mean / He's the meanest man that I've ever see
  4. ↑ cit. n. Klostermann, in Schaal, Jazz-Standards, p. 148
  5. ↑ a b Klostermann, in Schaal, Jazz-Standards, p. 149
  6. ↑ According to Nat Hentoff , this recording was the highlight of the show. See Hentoff Fine and Mellow (NPR)