JAZZ : Lady Sings the Blues and More in New Compilations : ***** BILLIE HOLIDAY “The Legacy (1933-1958)” <i> Columbia</i> : **** “The Complete Decca Recordings” <i> Decca</i> : *** 1/2 “Lady in Autumn: The Best of the Verve Years” <i> Verve</i>

The stunning woman spotlighted on Columbia’s “The Legacy” remains, 32 years after her death, the most seminal vocal force in jazz. Her ability to bend notes, to shift the melody subtly, to convey the joy of singing any song at all through a personal approach to phrasing is comparable only to that of Louis Armstrong, who along with Bessie Smith was one of her two idols.

There are dozens of trivial songs being sung by women in jazz clubs around the world that would have long been forgotten had Lady Day not made them a part of the jazz literature by putting her imprimatur on them.

A case in point, typifying the unique characteristics that set Billie Holiday apart from all female jazz singers before and since, is one of the earliest tracks in the Columbia set, the forgettable Tin Pan Alley tune “What a Little Moonlight Can Do.” Her timbre is immediately recognizable as the product of a jazz milieu; nobody need be told that here we have a quintessential jazz singer.

On another level, she could bring to a song such as “Gloomy Sunday” an unmatched world-weariness that managed, without any radical melodic changes, to evoke the song’s dramatic essence. Holiday was an instinctive artist who could cut deep into the heart of this plaintive dirge just as effortlessly as she could sublimate an insignificant ditty.

Of the 70 tunes on the three-CD, 3 1/2-hour package, all but four stem from that special period--1935 to 1942--when Holiday was recording as a solo artist or with Teddy Wilson’s orchestra. The personnel on the album is a virtual who’s who of the swing era: Lester Young, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Bunny Berigan, Roy Eldrige, Buck Clayton, plus Goodman, Ellington and Basie sidemen.

Contrary to the pompous liner notes, few of the songs are real dogs. Who can argue about “A Fine Romance,” “Summertime,” “Easy Living,” “Some Other Spring” or her own “God Bless the Child”? Besides, Holiday’s every inflection made magic out of the least of her vehicles.

Three previously unreleased tracks recorded from a radio broadcast during her 1938 sojourn in the Count Basie Band are expendable, as is a snippet from a Duke Ellington film short in which she is heard for just 40 seconds. In addition, an odd Goodman radio guest appearance finds Holiday sharing vocals in such unlikely company as Martha Tilton, Johnny Mercer and Leo Watson on “Jeepers Creepers.”

These flaws--including the surprise omission of her five fine 1940 studio sessions (featuring such songs as “Body and Soul,” “St. Louis Blues” and a dozen more)--are forgivable. This one-in-a-century voice, in any context, is an unforgettable marvel.

Two years after Holiday’s last (1942) date under her Columbia contract, she signed with Decca Records, where her producer, Milt Gabler, decided to broaden her appeal by transforming her from a jazz artist into a torch singer.

The concept got off to a magnificent start with “Lover Man.” At her suggestion, strings were used on this and other songs in the first four sessions. Several of those dates resulted in the most memorable music of her five Decca years. The singing, songs and arrangements are all superb in “No More,” “Don’t Explain,” “That Ole Devil Called Love” and “Good Morning Heartache.”

A decline in quality marked the later sessions, some with a big, brassy band and inept arrangements, others with small groups that lacked the profusion of great solos heard in the early Columbia days. One date includes both Lester Young and Buck Clayton but gives them no solos.

Some songs had been recorded in early, superior versions on Columbia. Two duets with Louis Armstrong involve trite tunes, such as the aptly named “My Sweet Hunk o’ Trash,” dubious for Satchmo’s use of obscenities in some verbal banter (this was originally replaced with a cleaned-up version).

The best small-group item by far is the poignant “I Loves You, Porgy,” backed by Bobby Tucker’s piano.

The main problem with the two-disc “The Complete Decca Recordings” is that although there are 50 tracks, only 34 tunes are heard. To stretch the time, alternate takes are added.

There are no fewer than five versions of “Big Stuff” (one of which breaks down after 15 seconds) and two or three almost identical treatments of other songs. By deleting these and reducing the 34 items to 24, Decca could have had a five-star, one-CD compendium.

In the 1950s Holiday switched to Verve Records and returned to the small-band format she had used in the 1930s, with Oscar Peterson, Harry (Sweets) Edison, Benny Carter and other giants.

The tunes on the label’s “Lady in Autumn” are mainly retreads of her earlier hits but with her vibrato now widened and her sound sometimes rasping. She was unhappy with these late sessions, yet as annotator Joel Siegel points out, “she could still summon up moments of affecting tenderness.”

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to four (excellent). A rating of five stars is reserved for classic reissues or retrospectives.