5 thoughts on “Blues for the Eastside on a Saturday night”

1. Wow. Ms. Holiday is certainly one of a kind. I like listening to the “Nothing but the Blues” radio show on weekends on kjzz 88.1 FM.

2. Nice, my abuela used to play “in my solitude”, cry and tell me about how hard it was being a chicana in the 30s. She used to go down to Central and see Cab Calloway and all the greats, I sure wish that scene hadnt died.

3. Oh man, that’s the song. I first really really heard Billie Holiday in Mexico many years ago and that melancholy voice just seemed appropriate as I pined over this Mexican angel in a purple blouse in Guanajuato. But, BH is one of the few whose sound stopped me in my tracks.

   John Bonham (drummer for Led Zeppelin) did it to me. Lhasa de Sela did it more recently. Grandmaster Caz stopped me. Al Jackson of Booker T. and the MG’s (and Al Green) does it to me. Julio Jaramillo. Big Mama Thornton. Man, even Dusty Springfield, has me.

   Anyway, thanks for the post. There is SO MUCH going on in that song.

   “My man, he don’t love me, he treats me awful mean.” To sing that when maybe the only man ever to really love you, Lester Young, is sitting right by you. Crazy. Is he the one who tried so hard to get you off smack but you chose IT over him? Is that why you two haven’t spoken in years? Man, that’s heavy

   More history of their “friendship” at

   http://www.popmatters.com/music/reviews/h/holidaybillie-lesteryoung-musical.shtml

   BTW Her version of “Gloomy Sunday” is used very well in the beginning of the movie “The Funeral.”

   It might not be Saturday night, but everyday I got the blues. Another two who bring a smiling tear to my eye:

   The man who “stopped time”

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhVdLd43bDI

   The man who gave birth to chuck berry, jimi hendrix, all of em

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1xvx0UHa0A

   Hope you enjoy. Again, thanks

4. Thank you City Terrace, yeah the great T-bone Walker! The writer of the famous song “Stormy Monday” (and today is Monday,go figure), “They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday’s just as bad”.

   Actually both Billie Holiday and Lester Young were hypes, as was Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and most of the jazz artists of that time. Heroin seemed to be the drug of choice among creative people of that era (the great Mexicano songwriter and musician “Augustin Lara” was also famously addicted to smack).
   The story I’ve always heard about Billie Holiday and the “Prez”, Lester Young, is that their love affair never involved the physical act of love, it was way beyond even that, it was a spiritual and soulful based deep love and affection that is very apparent as Lester Young plays his solo in the video.
   After Lester Young passed away it is said that Billie Holiday just faded away, and died shortly after Young, from sadness, loneliness and the “blues” without her soul-mate the “Prez”.

5. if i remember correctly, this performance marked the last time her and prez played together….