Billie Holiday was quoted as saying that she wanted the “feeling” of Bessie Smith with the “style” of Louis Armstrong. Two Holiday songs, Tain’t Nobody’s Biz-ness if I Do and I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues, serve as clear homages respectively to Smith and Armstrong, each of whom recorded the songs well before Holiday. Both the style and feeling are identifiable by three vocal metrics: quality (dynamics/intensity), space (range/range-based timbre), and articulation (enunciation/rhythmic emphasis). Detailed transcriptions of the Smith, Armstrong, and Holiday recordings of these song, including dynamics, bending of pitches, and rhythmic manipulation show not only that Holiday was strongly influenced by her predecessors, but also that elements of vocal quality, space, and articulation that Holiday actively wanted to emulate appear in her performances of these songs.

Works: Porter Grainger and Everett Robbins (composers) and Billie Holiday (performer): Tain’t Nobody’s Biz-ness if I Do; Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler (composers) and Billie Holiday (performer): I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues.

Sources: Porter Grainger and Everett Robbins (composers) and Bessie Smith (performer): Tain’t Nobody’s Biz-ness if I Do; Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler (composers) and Louis Armstrong (performer): I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues.

Index Classifications: 1900s, Jazz

Contributed by: Nathan Blustein