Welcome back, friends, to Reverse Polarity, the overarching goal of which is to highlight albums outside the realm of heavy metal that might nonetheless appeal to the discerning metalhead. These choices may not always be self-evident, inasmuch as the goal is not simply to find nonmetal albums that are equally abrasive or confrontational as metal (although it could be argued that previous Reverse Polarity inductees John Coltrane and Venetian Snares fit that bill). Instead, each edition is meant to be an argument. I will make a claim that some characteristic – lyrical, thematic, textural, contextual, and so forth – of the music resonates deeply with some of the myriad forces that make heavy metal such an endless source of fascination/neck-wreck-ination. You are, as always, at liberty to agree, disagree, threaten grievous bodily harm against my person for proffering such ludicrous notions, etc. But now, to work:
In today’s installment, we’re going back to jazz, but about as far from the chaotic collective improvisation of Coltrane’s Ascension as possible; today we’re talking Lady Day. Billie Holiday possessed one of the most distinctive voices of the twentieth century, and is rightly celebrated as one of the finest vocalists in jazz history. The album being presented for your consideration is 1958’s Lady in Satin. Equally loved and loathed by jazz fans, it remains a controversial album largely because it is an unflinching document of a much-loved voice (and life, for that matter) just a few faltering, quavering steps from complete disintegration.
To understand the extraordinary emotional impact of Holiday’s singing, it’s first necessary to understand a little about her short, sad, and extremely troubled life. She had an unstable home situation for much of her childhood, was raped by a neighbor at the age of eleven, and was arrested for working alongside her mother as a prostitute as a young teenager. I relate these details not out of salacious interest, but because the traumas of her early life give the genius of her art a richer context; a candle pierces through darkness where it might simply wobble in stark daylight.
“God Bless the Child” (1941):
Holiday began to achieve broad acclaim in the early 1930s, and remained a certified star until her death, at the age of 44, in 1959, but her life was constantly troubled: multiple relationships with abusive partners, heavy drinking, and nearly twenty years’ worth of abusing hard drugs, which included multiple arrests and jail time. By the 1950s, the ravages of her lifestyle were painfully evident in her singing. Although Holiday’s voice had never been one for pure, delicate bell tones, by the time Lady in Satin was recorded her voice had all but given up. Nevertheless, Lady in Satin is a heart-wrenchingly beautiful album.
The beauty, however, is the beauty of contrast. Taken at face value, the borderline-insipid, saccharine orchestral accompaniments sound like they walked into the wrong studio trying to find their way to record to opening credits for a Disney film circa 1943. They soar and swoon while Holiday’s voice gravels, wavers, and seems to threaten a downward glissando at the end of every phrase. Lady in Satin is thus, in many respects, dishonest, and yet it is also painfully honest precisely because of its dishonesty. The lush, sweeping, fanciful backing of a 40-piece orchestra should, at this point in musical history, be reassuring to most listeners and provide a warm and comforting foundation for a vocal showcase. Instead, the strings lay bare Holiday’s weakness as she sings song after song of love-lost and world-weary. The pain and decay are so audible, they become visible.
“You’ve Changed” (1958):
And yet, for all this talk of weakness and decline, Lady in Satin also betrays a certain dogged determination. The tone of Holiday’s voice is incontrovertibly altered, but she has lost none of her technique. Though not a part of the Lady in Satin album, for evidence of this, compare these two recordings of one of Holiday’s most famous songs, the searing anti-racism lament “Strange Fruit” (“Southern trees bear strange fruit / Blood on the leaves / and blood at the root / Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze…”):
“Strange Fruit” (Studio, Early Career):
The way she wraps her voice around the beat, either anticipating or delaying a resolution by a fractional margin, adds to the agonized reading of the song. Although her voice has noticeably declined in the years between the early studio and later live recording, the striking thing is the fierce and deliberate phrasing of that live performance. Her face, however, is gaunt, almost emaciated, and her haunted eyes tell as much of the story as our ears.
“Strange Fruit” (Live, Late Career):
Throughout Lady in Satin, Holiday’s voice sounds like it has begun to rot from the inside – evaporating the soft, rich center tone and leaving behind the ragged outer shreds that bear testament to a hard life, hard lived. Lady in Satin should thus appeal to anyone drawn to music that refuses to look away from unpleasant truths. In her early career, Billie Holiday’s voice was a cathedral, calm, pristine, and new. Now, it has seen the wars and fallen to ruin. The beauty it retains is a transient and utterly worldly sort, and yet it stands, even if as an elegy to its own past glory, and a monument to its future decline. God bless the child, indeed.
