A outra grande voz do jazz...


[fonte: www.downbeat.com]

... para além de Ella e Sarah, é Billie Holiday.

Ouçamo-la cantar "Strange Fruit", um tema que nos fala de questões raciais, linchamentos...

Vale a pena ouvi-la e ouvir a letra...

E era realmente um estranho fruto o que pendia das árvores no sul dos EUA...


Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Falando deste tema e da primeira vez em que o interpretou nuns EUA ainda segregacionistas, em 1939, Billie Holiday disse:

"There wasn't even a patter of applause when I finished". "Then a lone person began to clap nervously. Then suddenly everyone was clapping".

Já o autor do tema, Abel Meeropol (aka Lewis Allan), disse em 1971:

"I wrote "Strange Fruit" because I hate lynching, and I hate injustice, and I hate the people who perpetuate it".