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Billie Holiday Monday at 10 on Jazz From Blue Lake

Billie Holiday sings at Cafe Society, New York city
Billie Holiday sings at Cafe Society, New York city

Billie Holiday was an improvising artist who happened to sing. Using phrase and rhythm, combined with a unique vocal timbre, Holiday fit in with the heaviest jazz musicians of her day from her famous musical relationship with Lester Young and Teddy Wilson, to the Paul Whiteman and Artie Shaw Orchestras, to jazz greats Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Count Basie. She's remembered for the anti-lynching poem set to music "Strange Fruit," her original "God Bless The Child," and for emotional interpretations of popular American songbook numbers such as "Lover Man." Tonight at 10 p.m. Blue Lake Public Radio celebrates the music of Billie Holiday, and you may hear the broadcast again tomorrow on our new Jazz stream.

Blue Lake Public Radio’s “Jazz Director” Lazaro Vega started at Blue Lake in March of 1983, 8 months after Bob Hope spoke the first station I.D. ever heard on the air from Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. In 2018, Lazaro was nominated for the The Bobby Jackson Award by JazzWeek.com as Programmer of the Year. This honor is voted on by people who promote jazz record airplay and keep Blue Lake in new releases. For more about Lazaro, see his recent interview with Local Spins.