On July 17, 1959, Eleonora Fagan aka Billie Holiday, died aged 44. Nicknamed “Lady Day” by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday is one of the true jazz icons and one of the most influential singers of all time.  Famous jazz critics Leonard Feather, said about her: “Billie Holiday’s voice was the living intensity of soul in the true sense of that greatly abused word. As a human being, she was sweet, sour, kind, mean, generous, profane, lovable and impossible, and nobody who knew her expects to see anyone quite like her again.”