I’ll Be Seeing You
LP Sonet SLP 1000
For many years, there was a favorite music program on Swedish radio called Smoke Rings. The man behind it was Leif Anderson, and he, even if he may have protested himself, could easily be called an icon. He had many fine concepts for presenting the tunes, and one of them was “songs for summer evenings.”
If I should put myself in his clothes for a moment and borrow his idea, I would go to the shelf, take out this record, and choose this tune.
It’s a perfect match between the artist, the arranger, and the songwriter.
The best of Billie Holiday is for me two periods. The first is when she sounds so happy to be among great musicians like Teddy Wilson, Lester Young, and Buck Clayton and just be part of it all. Then there is a time just after that, when this recording was made in 1939, when she’s more in the center and seems to be enjoying it. Then the arrangements and the choice of tunes are furnished to fit her voice. In those, she often stays close to the melody and gives the words deep meaning, which I like.