--- 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: 2026-05-11T04:50:41.584Z 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=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 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=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Wynton Marsalis Recalls Billie Holiday on 100th Anniversary of Her Birth 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  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._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3769232/wynton-marsalis-billie-holiday/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3769232/wynton-marsalis-billie-holiday/"},"headline":"Wynton Marsalis Recalls Billie Holiday on 100th Anniversary of Her Birth","datePublished":"2015-04-03T16:00:08.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:50:41.584Z","description":"The acclaimed musician describes what made Holiday a peerless talent and why her music endures today","url":"https://time.com/3769232/wynton-marsalis-billie-holiday/","keywords":["photography","Jazz","Icons"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt00f860685db12547/698786983c1639e25a4528e5/billie_wp.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Liz Ronk","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/liz-ronk/"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Arpita Aneja","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/arpita-aneja/"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Eliza Berman","jobTitle":"Berman is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt00f860685db12547/698786983c1639e25a4528e5/billie_wp.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"billie_wp","caption":"","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3769232/wynton-marsalis-billie-holiday/","name":"Wynton Marsalis Recalls Billie Holiday on 100th Anniversary of Her Birth"}}]}] ```