A great night at the Jazz Café, Camden, on 7 April when we were transported back to the Jim Crow era and Billie Holiday’s concerts at Carnegie Hall in 1956, with Riketté Genesis really embodying Holiday and Alex Webb on piano with a fantastic band supporting. Holiday was born on 7 April 1915.
Webb read extracts from Holiday’s autobiography ‘Lady sings the Blues’ which Genesis opened with such flair that she had the audience eating out of her hand.
Honing her talent
Webb recounted that having been discovered Holiday made her first recordings with Benny Goodman and toured with the jazz greats like Count Basie. She honed her talent when she was given an early break by the owner of Café Society in New York, Barney Josephson, who offered her a two-year residency.
Josephson, Webb noted, was an anti-racist, establishing Café Society as the first racially-integrated venue showcasing African American performers. It was there that Holiday first performed ‘Strange Fruit’ although this haunting song about lynchings was notably, and understandably, absent from Riketté Genesis’s set.
A short taste of Riketté Genesis and Alex Webb performing the Billie Holiday Songbook from Carnegie Hall at another show.
Having spent a short time in prison for drugs offences related to addiction, she found herself hounded by the authorities and when she was refused her ‘cabaret licence’ was no longer allowed to perform in clubs or venues where alcohol was served. This led however to her legendary performances at Carnegie Hall.
If you get a chance to see this collaboration of Webb and Genesis, I would highly recommend it.
Alex Webb is performing another show ‘ Ineza & ‘Women’s Words, Sister’s Stories’ this Friday 11 April, at Toulouse Lautrec Jazz Club in London.
