(quote) Essentially, hers has been a jazz, an instrumental style of singing for as long as critics have known it. She may have got it mostly from Louis, from his records and from hearing him at theatres, but style comes in bits and pieces so infinitesimal that not even a singer can be aware of every last influence. What is significant is that she has been, and is, an artist in reshaping songs and ballads, and in this, of course, Louis was the first great master. (end quote)

Charles Edward Smith, "Billie Holiday," International Library of Negro Life and History: The Negro In Music And Art (The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, 1967), p. 142.

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