One of the photos I took in that year it was with Saint & Sinner together....I brought Mahalia Jackson and Billie Holiday together, Mahalia Jackson grabbed her by the arm, she said, 'I have read your book. I couldn't put it down. you have led a difficult life, chile'. Billie, she's blushing, head down like a 16-year-old girl.

They talked like two old aunties for about an hour, and I can't remember a word they said that don't kill me now. They weren't talking about music, it was like 'you know, the last time I bought that material it was $1.19 a yard'."

From: JAZZ 5/10 - 1966 October - p.14, 15 - (USA)
" Tony Scott photographer - part 1"
by unknown
Photos of Billie Holiday ©by Tony Scott

Billie Holiday remains one of the most beloved artists jazz has produce, years after her death. Time does not reduce the affection of her audience, and her frequently reissued records are continually winning her new admirers.

Many of the pictures of her that have been published in recent times have been sad ones from the period of her tragic decline, so we have dipped into Tony Scott's enormous collection once more and come up with these different and hitherto unpublished shots.

They show Billie close up, with that bold earring seen in a previous batch of Tony's pictures:

happily holding her Chihuahua, Pepe at her birthday party, three months before her death;

sitting in a New York Hotel room -1940 - with the brave, confident face she presented to the world in her better days;

talking with Mahalia Jackson (Tony Scott introduced them and stepped back to take photos.

Very few are the artists who, on leaving this world, bequeath to their audience such an aching heart as Billie did.

Go to : PHOTO GALLERY