DAY OF TRIBUTE ARTISTS READY AN EVENING AT THE BOWL TO CELEBRATE THE LIFE OF BILLIE HOLIDAY.

Byline: Fred Shuster Music Writer

HER EMOTIONAL HONESTY was as authentic as the gardenias she wore in her hair.

Artists asked to ruminate on the intersection of life and art in the music of Billie Holiday point to the sense of truth imparted in highly personal interpretations of sometimes unremarkable material. ``Anything I sing, it's a part of my life,'' Holiday once declared.

The greatest blues singer in jazz history was a keen observer of people and emotions, even as she was seemingly tortured by them. Her sophisticated phrasing, playfulness, introspection and intuitive ability to convey deep-rooted feelings was imprinted on every song recorded at her peak: the swing era of the 1930s through the heady days of bebop the following decade.

``The thing about great art in general is its honesty,'' says trumpeter Terence Blanchard, musical director of a multiartist salute to Holiday at the Hollywood Bowl on Wednesday. ``People can immediately relate to the subject matter of some of the songs and the way she delivers them. A song like 'Don't Explain' is about loving someone and being betrayed. 'God Bless the Child' is a sentiment anyone can relate to anywhere.

``She was a very sensual person who also lived with a great amount of pain.''

Born out of wedlock in Baltimore in 1915, the former Eleanora Fagan began singing in Harlem nightclubs around 1931. Legendary talent spotter John Hammond soon arranged for her to record with Benny Goodman, and she went on the road with the Count Basie and Artie Shaw bands.

``She was a beautiful person,'' recalls acclaimed jazz singer Jimmy Scott, who worked the gin-mills with Holiday in the 1940s and will salute her at the Bowl. ``In that era, it was a rough road for young girls. And to be a black girl in those times, prejudice was very high, so she had to be a strong woman. Her trials were trials for us all.''

In 1937, Holiday met up with her musical alter ego, saxophonist Lester Young. They were an ideal team, pushing each other to new heights in such enduring duets as ``Fine and Mellow,'' ``The Man I Love'' and ``Mean to Me.''

Young called Billie ``Lady Day,'' and she referred to him as ``Prez,'' and the affectionate nicknames stuck. In fact, one of the albums coming this month as part of Sony Records' extensive Holiday reissue program is ``A Musical Romance,'' a collection of Young and Holiday's greatest sides (an earlier compilation for completists is the 10-disc box ``Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia 1933-44'').

``Every exceptional artist I ever met told me their inspiration for playing the right way was Billie Holiday,'' Tony Bennett said. ``Nobody - I mean nobody - was more honest than Billie Holiday!''

In 1939, Holiday cut what is often considered the most powerful protest song ever recorded, ``Strange Fruit,'' penned by New York schoolteacher Lewis Allen about the lynching of blacks in the South. It became her signature number and nightclub finale, leaving audiences in stunned silence. Holiday explained she was driven to keep performing the painful, graphic piece because ``things like this are still happening.''

Holiday's life, as illustrated in the grossly exaggerated ``Lady Sings the Blues'' - billed as autobiography but actually penned by a ghost writer to drum up some badly needed cash for the ailing singer - started its decline in 1950 with a debilitating addiction to heroin and alcohol (Donald Clarke's ``Wishing on the Moon: The Life & Times of Billie Holiday'' is the best book on her life).

By 1956, Holiday was past her prime, although one final triumph came a year later when she sang ``Fine and Mellow,'' accompanied by her beloved Prez, on CBS' ``The Sound of Jazz'' program. The moving segment often turns up late at night on cable's Classic Arts Showcase.

``Sinatra covered a lot of songs she did,'' Elvis Costello points out. ``It's interesting he took so much from Billie Holiday. It's an interesting tribute to her that a singer as self-possessed as Sinatra clearly borrowed so much.''

On May 31, 1959, Holiday collapsed and was rushed to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with a liver condition complicated by cardiac failure. Two weeks later, cops busted her in her hospital room for possession, and she was placed under arrest with a guard posted outside the door. To add to her misery, she was fingerprinted and her mug shot taken while she lay in bed. The story was covered on the front pages of the tabloids.

Wednesday's tribute concert is the 43rd anniversary of her death, which occurred on July 17, 1959. It remains to be seen which Holiday songs will be covered that night, but it can safely be assumed nobody will rob Lady Day of the trademark gardenias she wore in her hair.

Marianne Faithfull, whose own nicotine-stained voice can bring to mind the ravages of Holiday's final decade, calls Billie ``the singers' saint. She had a very self-aware, introspective voice - a voice of the soul. She seduces you immediately. She also did something a lot of technical singers can't do, which is convey a helluva lot of truth and emotion.''

And she accomplished it even when dealing with mediocre fare, said sax great Sonny Rollins.

``She recorded practically everything they gave her, but it all comes out sounding wonderful,'' he said. ``I was totally in love with her. She was a goddess, as far as I was concerned.''

BROADWAY & HOLLYWOOD SALUTE BILLIE HOLIDAY

Who: Lea DeLaria, Oleta Adams, Lou Rawls, Dianne Reeves, Alan Cumming, Tom Wopat and the Terence Blanchard Quintet.

Where: Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood.

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday.

Tickets: $1 to $93. [phone] or www.hollywoodbowl.com.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- cover -- color) HOLIDAY magic

On his 77th birthday, Jimmy Scott joins other jazz legends for a tribute to the one and only Billie.

(3) no caption (Billie Holiday)

(4) Marianne Fathfull