Professor David Peimer
Billie Holiday: One of the True Greats!
Summary
Billie Holiday (1915–1959): the name conjures up so many moments, moods, and emotions. We will look at her troubled life, her remarkable voice, and her achievements as we enjoy listening to some of her greatest songs.
Professor David Peimer
David Peimer is a professor of theatre and performance studies in the UK. He has taught at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and New York University (Global Division), and was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University. Born in South Africa, David has won numerous awards for playwriting and directing. He has written eleven plays and directed forty in places like South Africa, New York, Brussels, London, Berlin, Zulu Kingdom, Athens, and more. His writing has been published widely and he is the editor of Armed Response: Plays from South Africa (2009) and the interactive digital book Theatre in the Camps (2012). He is on the board of the Pinter Centre in London.
Well, she was never taught, so she’s coming from a, I mean, she was never taught anything really, leaving school at the age of 11. But I think that there’s a, you know, it’s just a gift of, you know, as John Hammond said, of a kind of a musical genius of vocal range and improvisation and melody and sound and voice and music and song and, you know, all of that together. To me, I would say it’s not just one octave. I think it goes into jazz blues because not only was that usually becoming very popular at the time that she was a growing teenager, she mentions Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith as saving her life almost, or hearing them. So jazz was really burgeoning, feeding the jukebox trade as a business, but it was really moving at the time and she was riding that wave. I think also how this became so popular was that she was part of a whole different generation where jazz was beginning to be not only appreciated but ingrained almost in American culture and history and globally. The timing of it really, I guess, is what I’m saying.
Now, that’s really interesting, thank you. I try to research how much gospel. I think gospel would’ve had an influence in almost every African-American singer and musician. I think there’s no question that gospel is so much of the origins of so much of the blues, obviously, and jazz later. Did she get her singing from the gospel? I didn’t get as much when I researched and was rereading some of the autobiography again. I didn’t get as much from gospel as from Armstrong, Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, and other jazz singers. Because let’s remember, she’s in 12, 13, 14 when she hears those singers and musicians for the first time. So it’s coming more from that. But of course, the whole history of jazz and blues gets its ultimate, so much of the origin from gospel.