Jazz

25 HOLIDAY, Billie. Gardenia worn by Billie Holiday. 1957–59 “you can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation” A remarkably evocative “relic”, perhaps the only survivor of Lady Day’s trademark gardenias, unquestionably among the most powerful emblems in the iconography of jazz. Holiday apparently adopted the flower when, before a club date, she singed a hole in her hair with overheated tongs, rushed to the foyer and grabbed a boutonnière from the flower-girl to hide the damage. Thereafter it became part of her unique contribution to the notion of cool; “Holiday’s style was innovative and influential – furs, matted hair, fit-and-flare dresses, the gardenia in her hair – and seemed an emanation of a personal glamour … Jazz drummer Specs Powell … distinguished between the pose and the artistry … ‘Billie never affected anything. She was authentic.’ To tap dancer and raconteur Honi Coles, Holiday was very young, ‘but very cool, very gentle’, and she had ‘that confidence’ that others described as ‘her style and her arrogance’, the same qualities often ascribed in men as cool” (Dinerstein, pp. 172–3). This dried bloom confirms the origin myth in that it is boutonnière-backed with a green paper-wrapped wired “stem” rather than a clip or barrette. The piece comes from the estate of Alice Vrbsky, Billie’s secretary, maid and confidante for the last two years of her life (ex-Christie’s East, Entertainment Memorabilia, 2 June 1994). Alice approached Holiday after a concert in Central Park to get an autograph on her programme. Told to return the following day to get her copy of Lady Sings the Blues signed, she duly reappeared: “So next day I showed up with the record and the first thing she said was ‘Ah! A woman of her word!’ – just like that. And on the album she wrote ‘Thank you for loving me.’ You see we hit it off. I can’t explain it, but we hit it off’” (Blackburn, p. 310). Offered the secretary gig by Louis McKay, Holiday’s last abusive lover/manager, she accepted and was with the singer until her death two years later. For Billie’s last recording date in March 1959 under arranger Ray Ellis, “she was so weak that she often had to be held up in a chair by her secretary, Alice Vrbsky. It was Alice, not Ellis, who now determined how long the sessions could last, and she ended them when Billie was weakening, so most of the songs on the record are first takes” (Szwed, p. 266). After Billie’s

death, Alice “couldn’t listen to her records for a year” (Blackburn, p. 321). The flower is accompanied by two of Holiday’s “favourite hairclips”, one a poor quality “silvered” barrette, the other a hinged white metal retainer with faux pearls, which fits well with Alice’s witness that “for stage she wore stage jewellery that was not in the best condition” (ibid., p. 311), and during her last illness in hospital she “had her hair pulled back and clipped with an ordinary clip because she didn’t have anything valuable that I knew of” (ibid., p. 319). Altogether a most eloquent grouping, traces of a deeply troubled but truly graceful career; “You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation”. Gardenia boutonnière in plain pine double glazed frame (207 × 248 mm), attached to the rear panel of glass. Desiccated, overall brown but complete. ¶ Julia Blackburn, With Billie , 2006; Joel Dinerstein, The Origins of Cool in Postwar America , 2018; John Szwed, Billie Holiday: The Musician & the Myth , 2016. £6,500 [139078] 26 HOLIDAY, Billie – REIFF, Carole. “Billie Holiday ‘Lady Sings the Blues.’ Carnegie Hall, Oct. 10 ‘56”. New York: 1956 lady sings the blues Stunning image of Holiday lost in thought during the rehearsals for the legendary Lady Sings the Blues concerts in November 1956. With her health and voice failing, expectations were low, but as often Holiday was to confound her critics. Gilbert Millstein of the New York Times, who acted as narrator, remembered; “It was evident, even then, that Miss Holiday was ill. I had known her casually over the years and I was shocked at her physical weakness. Her rehearsal had been desultory; her voice sounded tinny and trailed off; her body sagged tiredly. But I will not forget the metamorphosis that night. The lights went down, the musicians began to play and the narration began. Miss Holiday stepped from between the curtains, into the white spotlight awaiting her, wearing a white evening gown and white gardenias in her black hair. She was erect and beautiful; poised and smiling. And when the first section of narration was ended, she sang – with strength undiminished – with all of the art that was hers. I was very much moved. In the darkness, my face burned and my eyes. I recall only one thing. I smiled.” Carole Reiff (1934–1984) was the daughter of illustrator and photographer Hal Reiff. She became

fascinated by photography while in her teens, graduated from the noted High School of Music and Art in Manhattan, before studying at the Art Students League. Reiff fell in love with jazz, and it immediately became her primary subject. She was one of very few female photographers working in that era, fewer still being published with any regularity. Armed with a Rolleiflex given to her by her father, she successfully talked her way into jazz clubs, concert halls, recording studios and rehearsal lofts. She possessed a great instinct for “the decisive moment”, a sense of spontaneity, which served her well in the improvisatory world of jazz. Reiff freelanced for record labels such as Columbia, Atlantic, Riverside, United Artists, and Prestige; and her work also appeared in Esquire, Time and the music trade journals. Metronome magazine cited her portrait of Thelonious Monk as “Jazz Photograph of the Year, 1956”. However, from the 1960s, Reiff worked almost exclusively in advertising. She died in 1984 at age fifty. Original vintage silver gelatin photograph mounted on cardstock (355 × 280 mm), contemporary typed title label verso, posthumous estate stamp “Copyright © 1985 Florence & Hal Reiff – Carole Reiff”. Barely perceptible soft score at the left-hand side of the image, else

very good. £3,750

[137235]

JAZZ

All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk

Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online