LADY DAY: The Many Faces of Billie...

LADY DAY: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday by Robert O’Meally (Arcade: $17.95; 207 pp.). Instead of recounting Holiday’s troubled (and often misrepresented) life, O’Meally concentrates on her development as an artist. Dividing her work into three periods (1933-1938, 1939-1949, 1950- 1959), he stresses the unique qualities of her voice, which she used the way other jazz musicians used instruments. Although the tone seems a bit worshipful at times, O’Meally’s text and extraordinary trove of photographs offer insights into the woman who declared, “I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way for two nights in succession, let alone two years or 10 years. If you can, then it ain’t music, it’s close-order drill or exercise or yodeling or something, not music.”