Given the title of this compact disc, The Complete Carnegie Hall Performances, plus a photograph of Billie Holiday at her famous Carnegie Hall concert of 27 March 1948, unreasonable expectation was aroused that at last someone, somewhere had unearthed acetates of this legendary show. Legendary because this concert was arranged by manager Joe Glaser while Holiday was still in prison at the Federal Reformatory for Women at Alderston, Virginia. As a money-grabbing ploy it was typical of Glaser's treatment of Holiday, intended to cash-in on her ‘notoriety’ (he had not responded to any requests in the matter of Holiday's accounting while she was in prison). Holiday only learned of the concert on the day of her release from prison on parole. In the event, it was a massive success, her concert gross setting a house record. But it's all a bit of an anti-climax, as it turns out all this is previously issued material, including her November 1956 Carnegie concert on Verve, The Essential Billie Holiday – Carnegie Hall Concert described by Downbeat magazine as her ‘ave atque vale’ – hail and farewell, to you and me, since she died just under three years later. Indeed, anyone with The Complete Billie Holiday On Verve 1945-1959 will have many of these tracks. Her Carnegie Hall concert on 25 September 1954, six tracks with her rhythm section plus the Count Basie Orchestra, previously appeared on Birdland All Stars at Carnegie Hall on the Roulette label. Tucked away in the ‘Bonus Tracks’ is an interesting interview Holiday gave to Tex McCleary on the Peacock Alley Show, formerly on I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone (Giants of Jazz GOJ 1001). Clearly she had been drinking, but she is cogent and offers up some fascinating anecdotes that are worth the price of the album.