It’s been 100 years in the making, but Billie Holiday is finally getting a plaque on the Walk of Fame. The announcement was made by the Philadelphia Music Alliance earlier this week.
The induction ceremony will be held on October 26. For updates, follow @PhillyJazzApp on Twitter. Billie loved her man and we love Billie.
The official trailer for the Netflix-produced documentary “What Happened, Miss Simone?” is now available:
The two minute clip is a veritable bombardment of vintage Nina Simone footage, and suggests the feature will come loaded with amazing scenes of her in concert, before the recording studio’s mic, on tour and in the streets, fighting tirelessly for the justice she so knew to be so necessary. What we’re promised by the trailer is a portrait of the artist as an imperfect woman–a genius musician and freedom fighter chased by terrible demons. Nina Simone was a woman who suffered, in spite of the joy and knowledge she brought to so many around her.
Philadelphia Jazz Appreciation Month is in full swing. In a recent interview, I noted that jazz musicians performed in nightclubs where they could not sit and hotels where they could not stay. The jazz legends whose music paved the way for the Civil Rights movement were subjected to racial discrimination as they traveled while black.
In 1936, Victor H. Green, a postal worker and civil rights activist, published the first edition of The Negro Motorist Green Book, a travel guide to navigate Jim Crow laws in the South and de facto segregation in the North.
The “Green Book,” as it was called, lists hotels, tourist homes, restaurants, nightclubs, beauty parlors, barber shops and other services. Philadelphia hotels in the 1949 edition include the Attucks, Chesterfield and Douglass.
The list of clubs includes Emerson’s Tavern, the setting for the Tony Award-winning play, “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill,” Café Society and Watts’ Zanzibar.
In the wake of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act which outlawed racial discrimination, the last edition of the “Green Book” was published in 1966-67.
UPDATE: A documentary, “The Green Book Chronicles,” co-produced by Calvin Alexander Ramsey and Becky Wible Searles, is in production.
In an interview with NBCBLK, Ramsey said:
There was no Internet back then to get the Green Book, this was put together with love from black people for each other to keep each other safe. The Green Book to me was a love letter of sorts. There was a time when we loved each other so much that we would open our homes just to keep another black person safe. You could be a superstar, a singer, an artist and in those days still have no place to stay, eat or bathe while on the road, so this book was about the love and ability to preserve our dignity.
Show Ramsey and his team some love and make a donation to help them complete “The Green Book Chronicles.”
Opened in 1950, the Flamingo Apartments was the first interracial apartment building in Philadelphia.
The complex was one block from the Blue Horizon and Mercantile Hall which played host to jazz legends, including Duke Ellington, Cliff Brown and Fats Navarro, and a short walk to the legendary Golden Strip.
In an interview with All About Jazz, WRTI Jazz Host Bob Perkins recalled:
A year ago, I did a short documentary on Bird (Charlie Parker), and found out about the apartment he lived in at Broad and Stiles near Girard Avenue.
[…]
Curiously, I lived in the same building 30 years later. Bird was there in 1952 to 1953. I lived there in 1980, between marriages. And, believe it or not, Dave Brubeck also lived there! He told me that, personally. It was called the Flamingo apartments—a hot place to live at the time. Arthur Prysock lived there.
Billie Holiday soon will have her own Walk of Fame plaque.
Today is the centennial of the birth of Billie Holiday. Contrary to popular belief, she was not born in Baltimore. Lady Day was born on April 7, 1915 at Philadelphia General Hospital.
The misapprehension about Holiday’s place of birth may account for why she hasn’t been inducted into the Walk of Fame. Despite her arrests and conviction in Philadelphia, she had love for her hometown. It was, after all, the place where she could work in the nightclubs. After her conviction, she lost her New York City cabaret card and could not work in places where alcohol was sold. So she could perform at a sold-out Carnegie Hall, but couldn’t get a gig at a hole-in-the-wall in Harlem.
Parenthetically, Holiday was inducted into the Apollo Theater’s Walk of Fame yesterday.
Yes, there’s a historical marker noting that when Lady Day was in town, she often lived at the Douglass Hotel.
Holiday is depicted in the Women of Jazz mural in Strawberry Mansion. But the mural is scheduled to be demolished by the Philadelphia Housing Authority.
The Walk of Fame plaque is the highest honor Philadelphia bestows on a musician:
The Music Alliance is best known for the Walk of Fame along Broad Street’s Avenue of the Arts. This series of over 100 bronze commemorative plaques honors Philadelphia area musicians and music professionals who have made a significant contribution to the world of music. The Walk of Fame is the City’s most impressive public monument to the people who have made Philadelphia a great music city.
It’s never too late to do the right thing. So I nominated Billie Holiday for induction into the Walk of Fame.
Happy birthday, Lady Day. We love you more than you’ll ever know.
UPDATE: The Philadelphia Music Alliance announced that “as a special birthday gift,” Billie Holiday is the newest inductee into the Walk of Fame. In a statement, Chairman Alan Rubens said:
The Philadelphia Music Alliance wanted to present what we think is a ‘perfect’ birthday gift to an extraordinary vocalist, Billie Holiday, and announce her induction on her 100th birthday. It will be an absolute pleasure to be able to walk down Broad Street and see her name where it rightfully belongs, on the Philadelphia Music Walk of Fame, with other homegrown jazz giants like John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, and Grover Washington, Jr.
Again, it’s never too late to do the right thing.
Written and directed by Dee Rees, “Bessie” follows the life and times of legendary “Empress of the Blues” Bessie Smith (played by Queen Latifah).”Bessie” also stars Mo’Nique, Khandi Alexander, Charles S. Dutton, Mike Epps and Tika Sumpter.
The biopic will premiere on HBO on Saturday, May 16, 2015. For more info, visit BessietheMovie.com.
At today’s kickoff of Philadelphia Jazz Appreciation Month, it was music to my ears when Mayor Michael A. Nutter mentioned a news article about Billie Holiday in which I was quoted. I noted that Lady Day does not have a plaque on the Walk of Fame.
The Mayor is on it. He plans to talk with the Philadelphia Music Alliance, the nonprofit organization that’s responsible for the Walk of Fame. PMA touts that it is “Philadelphia’s largest and most important single monument honoring outstanding contributions to this city’s rich and diverse musical heritage.”
After the press conference, I introduced myself to Nutter. He immediately said we should work together to make sure Lady Day takes her rightful place among the jazz legends on the Avenue of the Arts.
I don’t think PMA needs to explain why Holiday does not have a plaque on the Walk of Fame. The nomination process seems to be straightforward. So while I don’t think any slight is intended, the oversight should be corrected as soon as possible.
For more info, contact All That Philly Jazz.
The 5th Annual Philadelphia Jazz Appreciation Month celebration is underway.
The 2015 Philadelphia Jazz Honoree is West Philly native McCoy Tyner, a four-time Grammy winner and NEA Jazz Master. Mayor Michael A. Nutter gave Tyner an inscribed Liberty Bell, the equivalent of the keys to the city.
Tyner said his Philly roots are deep:
It’s wonderful to be back home in Philadelphia. I would like to thank the Mayor and the people of this great city for making this possible for me. No matter where I am in the world, Philadelphia always has a special place in my heart.
For information about Philadelphia Jazz Appreciation Month events, visit www.creativephl.org/jazz.
Named after Crispus Attucks, the first patriot to die in the Boston Massacre, the Attucks Hotel was popular with Black entertainers and athletes who were not allowed to stay at Philadelphia hotels that catered to whites. Guests included Hank Aaron, Roy Campanella, Ella Fitzgerald, Redd Foxx, Satchel Paige, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Billie Holiday.
John Timpane of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote:
The year 1947 was a year of betrayal for [Billie] Holiday. She was at the peak of her career, earning upward of $60,000 a year, but hooked on heroin and opium. After a show at the Earle, her room at the Attucks Hotel was raided, and she was arrested on charges of narcotics possession.
From Monrovia Sound Studio:
Jelly Roll Morton and members of his orchestra would have had just a short drive of about 5 miles from the Attucks Hotel … to the R.C.A. studios in Camden, N.J. to carry out a contracted recording assignment. The route would have taken them across the Delaware River via the Delaware River Bridge (formally the Benjamin Franklin Bridge).
The Attucks Hotel is now home to Universal Institute Charter School.The school is part of Universal Companies, founded and chaired by legendary producer, songwriter, and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Kenny Gamble.
All That Philly Jazz 