--- title: VIDEO: Wynton Marsalis on the Centennial of Billie Holiday’s Birth description: The musician and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center on what made Holiday a peerless talent and why her music endures today. canonical: https://time.com/3769232/wynton-marsalis-billie-holiday/ author: Liz Ronk article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-03T16:00:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-01T09:07:43.183Z og:title: VIDEO: Wynton Marsalis on the Centennial of Billie Holiday’s Birth og:description: The musician and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center on what made Holiday a peerless talent and why her music endures today. og:url: https://time.com/3769232/wynton-marsalis-billie-holiday/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt00f860685db12547/698786983c1639e25a4528e5/billie_wp.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: billie_wp og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: VIDEO: Wynton Marsalis on the Centennial of Billie Holiday’s Birth twitter:description: The musician and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center on what made Holiday a peerless talent and why her music endures today. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt00f860685db12547/698786983c1639e25a4528e5/billie_wp.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Wynton Marsalis Recalls Billie Holiday on 100th Anniversary of Her Birth > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: 100 Years of Lady Day [Watch (HLS stream): 100 Years of Lady Day](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/rBtnSMkK.m3u8) (2:23)  _Published 2015-04-03. Jazz legend Wynton Marsalis talks about the artistic vision of Billie Holiday on her 100th birthday_ by [Liz Ronk](https://time.com/author/liz-ronk/), [Arpita Aneja](https://time.com/author/arpita-aneja/) and [Eliza Berman](https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/) Apr 3, 2015 4:00 PM UTC Jazz legend Wynton Marsalis talks about the artistic vision of Billie Holiday on her 100th birthday by [Liz Ronk](https://time.com/author/liz-ronk/), [Arpita Aneja](https://time.com/author/arpita-aneja/) and [Eliza Berman](https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/) Apr 3, 2015 4:00 PM UTC When Wynton Marsalis was 24, he spent a year listening to Billie Holiday. “I listened to every record I could find of hers,” he says, “and every day I only listened to her.” One might expect a young Marsalis to spend a year with Louis Armstrong or Dizzy Gillespie, musicians who excelled on the trumpet, which he plays. But Holiday’s own instrument, her voice, contains multitudes — lessons on rhythm, phrasing and sophistication that any student of jazz would do well to study. Marsalis spoke with LIFE to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of Holiday’s birth on April 7, 1915\. In the video above, he discusses her rhythmic sensibility, why it’s a mistake to attribute the quality of her voice to the hardship of her life and how she came to be recognized as one of the greatest voices in the history of jazz.  Billie Holiday singing "Fine & Mellow" accompanied by James P. Johnson at piano. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images _Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Billie Holiday Festival takes place on April 9-12\. Go to_ [_www.jazz.org_](http://www.jazz.org) _for event and live webcast information._ ## Transcript [00:19] [ MUSIC ] Billie Holiday. You had somebody who [00:24] had the sophistication of Louis Armstrong phrasing in [00:27] the female form. [ MUSIC ] It's like [00:32] what comes out of her can [00:36] only come out of a woman. It's a certain type of [00:41] woman is not in men -. She would phrase in a triplet [00:44] time. Sort of rhythms all squared. When we want to [00:48] sing, we sing. Or when she sings, she would go [00:52] one two three, one two three, when [00:56] we want to sing, we sing. When we want to dance, [01:03] we dance. [ MUSIC ] For me to float across the time. [01:07] [ MUSIC ] [01:10] She was able to take kinda roles, role [01:14] forms that are music and things that existed in the [01:16] country and citify them. She was extremely [01:20] sophisticated in her understanding of harmony. And an [01:23] understanding of melody. How many people [01:26] erroneously attributed to the hardship in her life, [01:30] but it's actually just the lyric sensibility and the poetic [01:34] and the artistic substance of her vision. No one knows [01:36] why a person has that. [ MUSIC ] [01:47] We could read a speech of Martin Luther King, so all [01:50] the words would be exactly the same. But in no way [01:54] would it sound like him speaking it. And that's the [01:57] closest how you can explain what musicians have in the [01:59] sound of their instruments or in their singing. What [02:02] gives a person that is, is a mystery. Is, that's not a [02:05] matter of practice. It's a spiritual endowment that [02:15] you're [02:17] given. 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