Billie Holiday

On a late winter night early in 1939, Billie Holiday stood on stage at New York's CafM-i Society and, with a single pin light illuminating her face, sang a new song called "Strange Fruit." "Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. Pastoral scene of the gallant South, The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth, Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh, And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Beryl Bryden, 78, a jazz singer dubbed "Britain's queen of the blues" by Ella Fitzgerald, died in London on Tuesday of cancer. In a career spanning 50 years, she performed with many of the jazz greats, including Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong.Pub Date: 7/17/98

Irving Gordon, 81, a songwriter who wrote "Unforgettable" and won a Grammy for it four decades later after Natalie Cole recorded it as a duet with her late father's recording, died of cancer Sunday at his home in Los Angeles. His songs were recorded by such greats as Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and Patti Page.Pub Date: 12/04/96

Ruby Glover has another project on the way. She's investigating a home near the harbor that new research identifies as the home of blues legend Billie Holiday in the 1920s. Glover, who is 77, teaches a jazz appreciation course at Sojourner-Douglass College and is actively involved in the history of black music in Baltimore. If requested, she leads tours along Pennsylvania Avenue, where she once sang at several clubs. "In order to study the history of jazz, I have to start with the Avenue," she said the other day. Former mayor Kurt L. Schmoke called Glover "the godmother of jazz."

Sultry voices, flowing gowns and several white gardenias graced Center Stage yesterday during the 14th annual Billie Holiday Vocal Competition. "What's that show? American Idol? Well, these are some of Baltimore's idols," said Mayor Martin O'Malley, who announced the three winners. Under dim red lights, 13 jazz singers performed Billie Holiday covers for an audience of about 400 from noon to 4 p.m. Doris Dow of Baltimore, a vocalist for the Top 40 band TNT who sings with local church groups, was the first-place winner.

When Baltimore sculptor James Earl Reid created the city's first memorial to the stunningly gifted jazz singer Billie Holiday in 1985, something was missing. Gone were the panels containing references to the Jim Crow era and the lynching that Holiday so chillingly recounted in the ballad "Strange Fruit." Now Reid has a chance to remedy what he calls censorship by city officials, by adding the bronze panels for today's rededication of the statue on the 50th anniversary of her death. The striking, 8-foot-6-inch-high, 1,200-pound likeness of the Baltimore-born Holiday, wearing a strapless gown, with her trademark gardenias in her hair and her mouth open in song, will now rest on a 20,000-pound base of solid granite, as Reid had intended all along.

Remember the werewolves of London? Looks like there's something new (but not as hairy) haunting the banks of the Thames. Angela Oriente, who runs A&M Costume Gallery in Parkville, got a call the other day from an American in London. His name was Matthew Anderson and he was desperate for -- get this -- a Judge Ito mask for Halloween.Angela thought it was a joke -- until Anderson called back, and called a third and fourth time. "He said he couldn't find a Judge Ito mask in London," Angela reports.

Billie Holiday Festival Billie Holiday fans celebrate the turbulent life and brief career of the jazz vocalist this weekend. Holiday, who spent most of her younger days trying to make ends meet in Baltimore, will be remembered with big-band performances and live renditions of her music. Former winners of the Mayor's Billie Holiday Vocal Contest will also perform. A jazz vocal workshop for all ages will be offered Sunday. The annual Billie Holiday Music Festival will be held Saturday at New Haven Lounge in the Northwood Shopping Center, 1552 Havenwood Road, 9 p.m.-1:30 a.m. The festival continues Sunday 3 p.m.-7 p.m. with a vocal workshop at the Eubie Blake Museum and Cultural Center, 847 N. Howard St. The event is free on Saturday and costs $10 on Sunday for the workshop.

AS WE celebrate the contributions of African-Americans this month, it is a great time to recognize one of the most creative gifts to the world's music -- jazz. This unique musical form was shaped by the combination of the many experiences and traditions of Africans in America and melded from spirituals, work songs and city and delta rhythms. Whether created in joy, pain or hope, jazz provided a new form of expression that changed the way the world listened to music. The city of Baltimore has a special place in the history and creation of jazz.

LADY DAY: THE MANY FACES OF BILLIE HOLIDAY. By Robert O'Meally. Arcade Publishing Inc. 207 pages. $29.95. An accompanying VHS videotape sells for $29.95. SHE CALLED herself Billie Holiday. Others called her "Lady Day." Jazz critic Martin Williams, who played a role in the inception of this project, labeled her a great musician and "a great natural actress who had learned to draw on her own feelings and convey them with honest directness to a listener."After 207 pages (and more than 178 photographs and illustrations, a bibliography and notes)