Billie Holiday - Solitude (with bonus tracks)

Solitude finds Billie Holiday in an intimate, late-night mood, here on limited 180-gram colored vinyl imported from Spain, with bonus tracks added to the original programme.

The songs come from her first sessions for Norman Granz in 1952, when she signed what would be the last long-term contract of her career. Gathered on this album in 1956, they show Holiday in a stripped-back, small-group setting, her voice darker and more weathered than in her youth, but every phrase still bent and shaded with total control.

The backing is first-rate: Oscar Peterson sits at the piano, while Charlie Shavers on trumpet and Flip Phillips on tenor sax add gentle commentary around the vocal. The title track Solitude is achingly slow and spare, These Foolish Things turns a standard into a private confession, and Love for Sale carries a weary, knowing edge few singers have matched. Tenderly closes the original album on a hush.

The bonus tracks extend that late-night spell a little further, rounding out a programme best heard in one sitting, lights low and the rest of the world on mute.

For anyone drawn to Lady Day's later voice, with all its bruises and wisdom, Solitude is essential listening, and one of the most affecting records of her final decade.

Tracklist

Side A

1. East of the Sun
2. Blue Moon
3. You Go to My Head
4. You Turned the Tables on Me
5. Easy to Love
6. These Foolish Things
7. If the Moon Turns Green (*)
8. April in Paris (*)

Side B

1. I Only Have Eyes for You
2. Solitude
3. Everything I Have Is Yours
4. Love for Sale
5. Moonglow
6. Tenderly
7. I’ll Be Seeing You (*)