Featuring just under two and a half hours of music, Avid Jazz's 2CD set brings together four albums recorded by the singer for the Clef, Decca and Verve labels. Holiday's 1952 Clef album Solitude and 1958 Verve album Songs For Distingué Lovers contain some of the finest jazz singing of the 20th century. The former includes brilliant interpretations of ‘These Foolish Things (Remind Me Of You)’, ‘Love For Sale’, ‘Moonglow’ and more, brought to life by a small group combo that features pianist Oscar Peterson, bassist Ray Brown and more. With stellar accompaniment from an all-star band that includes Harry ‘Sweets’ Edison on trumpet, Ben Webster on tenor, Jimmy Rowles on piano and Barney Kessel on guitar, Songs For Distingué Lovers is one of Holiday's most memorable sessions, from the infectiously swinging ‘Day In, Day Out’ to gorgeously languorous takes on ‘Stars Fell On Alabama’ and ‘I Didn't Know What Time It Was’, all of which detonate a huge emotional charge. Consisting of tracks that were originally mastered for issue on 78s, the two 1958 albums released on Decca, Lover Man and The Blues Are Brewin', also contain some fine things, from the time-bending phrasing of the great Isham Jones/Marty Symes standard, ‘There Is No Greater Love’, to the Sy Oliver big-band arrangement of ‘You Can't Lose A Broken Heart’ (one of two duets with Louis Armstrong). Holiday's penultimate studio album Lady In Satin will divide fans and critics until the end of time. Yes, Holiday's timbre has lost its lustre, but on songs such as ‘You've Changed’ and ‘For All We Know’ her inimitable artistry appears to be crystalised, striking a heart-breaking equipoise of vulnerability and defiance which only she could achieve. While tracks 13-23 are rather prosaically listed as ‘bonus tracks’, they in fact make up Holiday's final album, Last Recording, similarly recorded with arranger Ray Ellis and completed just four months before the singer's death in July 1959.