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Left Alone (song)

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Composer(s)
  
Mal Waldron

Language
  
English

Lyricist(s)
  
Billie Holiday

"Left Alone" is a jazz song written by singer Billie Holiday, and pianist/composer Mal Waldron and published by E.B. Marks.

Contents

Background

This is one of seven songs written by or co-written by Holiday that she never recorded.

Mal Waldron began working as pianist for Holiday in mid-1953. Holiday had intended to record the song a number of times but "always forget the damned sheet music." However, Waldron himself recorded the song on his 1959 album Left Alone, and near the end of the LP discusses the origin of the song.

Recordings

Waldon frequently performed the song for albums, often with tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin (who also played on the Left Alone album). Version are included in Mal: Live 4 to 1 (1971), Like Old Times (1976), Left Alone '86 (1986), Into the Light (1989), My Dear Family (1993), and Left Alone Revisited (2002).

Other jazz performers who've recorded the song include:

  • Abbey Lincoln – Straight Ahead (with Waldron on piano, 1961)
  • Johnny Griffin – White Gardenia (1961).
  • Eric Dolphy and Booker Little – Far Cry (1962)
  • Kimiko Kasai – One For Lady (with Waldron on piano, 1971)
  • Abraham Burton – Closest to the Sun (1994)
  • Johnny Griffin and Junko Onishi – Hat Trick (1996)
  • Steve Kuhn – Plays Standards (2009)
  • Tsuyoshi Yamamoto – Gentle Blues (2013)

    • An instrumental version of the song appeared on Joe Satriani's Time Machine in 1993. The Satriani version, titled "All Alone", was released as a single, reached No. 21 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart and received a nomination for Best Rock Instrumental Performance at the 1995 Grammy Awards.

    References

    Left Alone (song) Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA