In 1939 and 1940 Billie Holiday recorded a handful of poignant songs co-written by a good friend of hers, Irene Wilson (later known as Irene Kitchings). Wilson was grieving over the breakup of her marriage to pianist Teddy Wilson, and “Some Other Spring,” in particular, was said to have been inspired by her loss. Before her marriage to Wilson (whom she influenced in many ways, introducing him to classical music and accelerating his development as a piano player), she had worked in Chicago (under the names of Irene Armstrong and Irene Armstrong Eadie) as the leader of an all-female jazz trio called Three Classy Misses…

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Benny Carter led an extraordinarily long life in jazz; as one writer pointed out, he was probably the only musician who both recorded into an acoustic horn and surfed his own website. Big-band veteran and arranger, author of jazz standards such as “When Lights Are Low” and “Blues in My Heart,” pioneer for black composers in Hollywood…

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