Billie Holiday

The music pieces that have interested me and that I have enjoyed for this assignment is Holiday: Billie’s Blues and All Eyez on Me by Tupac Shakur. Between these two pieces of music, there are many differences and a bit of similarity. All Eyez on Me is a piece written and sung known as one or even the greatest rapper of all time, Tupac Shakur. It’s hard to argue against anyone that says that as he accomplished so much at…...

The performances I chose to analyze are Billie Holiday X Pearl Primus- Strange Fruit (Music Video) and Alvin Ailey Dance- Wade in the Water from “Revelation”. I chose these two performances because they both tie into the slavery aspect of the United States; one was created after the slavery era during the Jim Crow timespan and the other was a song of escaping slavery. These two songs to a student that not only have ancestors from both of the eras,…...

In April of 1944, Billie Holiday recorded the jazz standard “I’ll Be Seeing You” with Eddie Heywood and his Orchestra. This tune connects to both the sentimental nostalgia and sorrow that many people felt upon losing their loved ones during the Invasion of Normandy. The song “I’ll Be Seeing You” is originally from the musical Right This Way. It was an unsuccessful “flop” musical composed by Brad Green with lyrics by Irving Kahal and book written by Marianne Brown Waters…...

Despite her appalling childhood, Billie Holiday made something out of herself. She touched people with her golden voice, and her moving words. They said that she “poured her broken heart into every word she sang”. Her voice caught the attention of many people. She turned peoples’ perspective on music upside down. Billie didn’t have the most ideal childhood. She was born as Eleanora Fagan, on April 7th, 1915, in Baltimore Maryland. Both her parents were teenagers when they had her.…...

One of the most prolific, phenomenal, and influential forces of the twentieth century, Billie Holiday’s music and voice was and remains a staple in jazz music. Her resilience and refusal to conform to the norm, but instead choosing to stay true to who she was as an artist is something to be deeply admired and is without doubt what propelled her into the legend she is today. She used her voice as an instrument to convey deep emotions that others…...

The Forge is a descriptive poem in which Heaney celebrates local craftsmanship, explores cultural roots, and discusses social history. The forge described in the poem in one that the poet passed every day on his way to school. Using the smith, an ordinary person, as a metaphor of himself, Heaney celebrates artists in the community, as well as the creation, beauty and perfection in art. The central idea, however, appears to be the mystery and sacredness of this creative process.…...

Billie Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan, on April 7, 1915 to a thirteen year old mother and a fifteen year old jazz guitarist, father. After a difficult early childhood, which included scrubbing floors at a brothel and singing in night clubs to make ends meet she was ‘discovered’ by the record producer John Hammond in around 1932. In 1933 she made her first recording of a song called ‘Your Mother's Son-In-Law’ and her career took off. Billie started leisurely use…...