BILLIE HOLIDAY feat. LADYBUG / “Spreading Rhythm Around”

What a marvelous mess this is—marvelous when it works, a mess (which is much of the time) when it doesn’t. Y’all know we have three categories: Classics, Contemporary, and Covers. Well, since two years ago when we started, the Covers category has morphed into not just remakes by a different artist, but remixes as well. Y’all also know that I liked a lot of the Nina Simone remix project that came out last year. Plus, you know I can listen to house music without cringing. But folks, this Billie Holiday remix project is a big challenge for my ears and my sensibility. I love Billie Holiday’s music. I didn’t like it when I first heard her—Billie’s sound (her vocal inflections, timber and tone) was too strange for my immature teen ears. But as I grew in my appreciation of the music, my appreciation for Billie grew. Billie was a swing-era singer who, as she grew, came to epitomize a specific style of music. Billie’s music was never the raucous, frantic, frenetic approach favored by beboppers. Hers was a cool, concentrated distillation of deep emotions. Billie Holiday was very, very potent, even in small dosages. These remixes, especially the house-oriented ones, violate Billie’s approach. They are generally loud and booming, bass heavy, drum machine-thudding affairs which are far, far afield from the intimate combo statements or the pop-with-strings approach, or even the small band swing sessions that collectively comprise the bulk of Billie’s recordings. But it’s not just a stylistic question. When Billie was recording, the musicians often all crowded around one or two mics. The horns were standing next to the singer. There was very little isolation of the vocalist or featured soloist, which means that even with the original tapes in hand, there’s not much changing of the basic sound that can happen. Many of today’s remixes strip away everything but the vocalist or the soloist while tacking on a completely different instrumental mix. This is not so easy with music recorded in the thirties and forties. And it’s next to impossible to mix swing and boom bap. The Billie remixes I like best are those that either sample Billie’s voice injecting it into a completely new context or the few that use both Billie’s voice and original breaks in combination with a contemporary soundscape to completely change rather than simply reinterpret the music. I think after the success of the Nina remix project, Columbia was hoping that lightning would strike twice with Billie Holiday - Remixed & Reimagined. But hey, even if the juice hits a second time, that doesn’t necessarily make the monster dance. All of that said, I detest the house cuts. As an example I include “Pennies From Heaven,” the least offensive but even that one…. You have ears, judge for yourself. I said what I had to say. “Spreading Rhythm Around” is one of the few cuts that fully succeeds as a remix project. The original sound is successfully used to create a truly new sound, sort of like watching with your mouth agape as you check out Frankenstein’s monster break dancing. They call it the “Lady Bug vs. Lady Day RR Remix” and it’s easily the best of the lot, although not far behind are "More Than You Know," a Jazzem's Throwback Remix, and “Trav’lin’ All Alone,” a Nickodemus and Zeb Remix. There are a couple of others that I like, but not so much as a remix, rather as a new song that sort of samples some of Billie while judiciously dropping her in the mix here and there. Poppyseed’s remix of “He Ain’t Got Rhythm” is a good example of this approach. It has a quasi-samba feel to it. Mtume, I’m really interested in what you think of these tracks. I know my jazzhead ears don't like the majority of these cuts when viewed from the jazz side of the fence whereas I can dig a few of them from the club music side. How do these remixes sound to your ears, Mtume? I’ve pointed out the ones that I like. I wish they had done more radical surgery—both in the sense of more remixes that really take a radical approach like “Spreadin’ Rhythm” does, as well as more tracks like that and less of the house remixes or the deplorable version of “Summertime” that sounds like an ad for a tanning studio with nary a beam of natural sunlight anywhere around. —Kalamu ya Salaam
         Just ok         You want to know what I think of these remixes, huh? Well, first things first. That house remix of "Pennies From Heaven" is an automatic skip. I was happy to see that you didn't actually like it. These tunes aren't all bad though. I agree with you about the "Trav'lin' All Alone" and "More Than You Know" remixes. I like the "I Hear Music" remix too, although I don't know if that one's going to end up in the jukebox. The thing I really wanted to talk about though, is the difference between this remix project and the Nina Simone remix project. Not that I know what the difference is. There's just something about Nina. Something about her voice, her style or attitude, that makes her voice dominate those remixes as much as she dominated her own original recordings. With almost all of these Billie Holiday remixes, Billie's voice is just window dressing. With all the loud electronic grooves playing, Billie's voice recedes into the background, sounding thin and brittle. But Nina's voice never sounds thin, remix or no—she's just too bad-ass to be overshadowed by anything, even too-loud computer drums. The other thing is, even in the case of the Billie Holiday remixes from this collection that I actually do like,  I like them just because they're catchy and listenable, not because they're exceptional. Contrast that with the Nina Simone remix project, where there were actually a couple of remixes that were arguably as good as the originals. Now that's really saying something. These...they're just ok. —Mtume ya Salaam

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 at 12:21 am and is filed under Cover. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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