April 7th

Today is the birthday

. . . of Ravi Shankar. Norah Jones’ father is 88.

. . . of Hendley “The Scrounger,” Bret Maverick and Jim Rockford. That’s James Garner, 80 today.

. . . of Trapper. Wayne Rogers is 75.

. . . of Governor Moonbeam. Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown is 70.

. . . of Francis Ford Coppola. The Oscar-winning writer and director is 69. Coppola has been nominated 14 times overall, winning five, three for writing (Patton, Godfather and Godfather II). He won the best director and best picture Oscars for Godfather II.

. . . of David Frost. The journalist, television celebrity is 69.

. . . of Jackie Chan, 54.

. . . of Russell Crowe. The 3-time best actor Oscar nominee is 44. He won for Gladiator.

. . . of Tiki and Ronde. The Barber brothers are 66.

Eleanora Fagan was born on this date in 1915. We know her as Billie Holiday.

Miss Holiday set a pattern during her most fruitful years that has proved more influential than that of almost any other jazz singer, except the two who inspired her, Louis Armstrong and the late Bessie Smith.

Miss Holiday became a singer more from desperation than desire. She was named Eleanora Fagan after her birth in Baltimore. She was the daughter of a 13-year-old mother, Sadie Fagan, and a 15-year-old father who were married three years after she was born.

The first and major influence on her singing came when as a child she ran errands for the girls in a near-by brothel in return for the privilege of listening to recordings by Mr. Armstrong and Miss Smith.
. . .

At Jerry Preston’s Log Cabin, a night club, she asked for work as a dancer. She danced the only step she knew for fifteen choruses and was turned down. The pianist, taking pity on her, asked if she could sing. She brashly assured him that she could. She sang “Trav’lin’ All Alone” and then “Body and Soul” and got a job–$2 a night for six nights a week working from midnight until about 3 o’clock the next afternoon.

Miss Holiday had been singing in Harlem in this fashion for a year or two when she was heard by John Hammond, a jazz enthusiast, who recommended her to Benny Goodman, at that time a relatively unknown clarinet player who was the leader on occasional recording sessions.

She made her first recording, “Your Mother’s Son-in-Law” in November, 1933, singing one nervous chorus with a band that included in addition to Mr. Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Gene Krupa and Joe Sullivan.

Two years later Miss Holiday started a series of recordings with groups led by Teddy Wilson, the pianist, which established her reputation in the jazz world. On many of these recordings the accompanying musicians were members of Count Basie’s band, a group with which she felt a special affinity. She was particularly close to Mr. Basie’s tenor saxophonist, the late Lester Young.

It was Mr. Young who gave her the nickname by which she was known in jazz circles–Lady Day. She in turn created the name by which Mr. Young was identified by jazz bands, “Pres.” She was the vocalist with the Basie band for a brief time during 1937 and the next year she signed for several months with Artie Shaw’s band.

The New York Times (1959)

Billie Holiday and Francis Ford Coppola. It ought to be a national holiday.