Lady Day Reimagined: Stella Heath’s Jazz Story

Vocalist Stella Heath describes Billie Holiday the way a director describes a great actor—precise about choices, attentive to subtext, and focused on how a story resonates in the room. “Stories are front and foremost for me,” she says. That principle guides the Billie Holiday Project she presents at SFJAZZ Center’s Joe Henderson Lab for four intimate sets on September 6–7, an evening designed to highlight Holiday’s craft and courage as much as her legend.

Heath’s connection to Holiday starts with feeling. What drew her in wasn’t just her timbre or repertoire, but the uncanny way Holiday “makes you feel a song.” Heath perceives emotional accuracy — how a single line can convey witness, tenderness, or a cutting aside. The Billie Holiday Project aims to convey that feeling in context. Between songs, Heath offers brief, pointed narration that places the music within Holiday’s life and era without turning the concert into a lecture. The balance is intentional: just enough framing so the songs speak clearly, and then back to the music.

A cornerstone of Heath’s approach is the refusal to impersonate. “From the beginning, it was really a goal of mine not to imitate,” she says. Instead, she studies Holiday’s choices and uses them as tools. If a phrase benefits from Holiday’s tone or a clipped syllable, she’ll incorporate it; if a line needs her own sound exactly, she’ll keep it that way. The result is homage, not cosplay—respect for the blueprint, delivered in her own voice.

Stella Heath. Photo credit: Fred Aube.

Heath is remarkably clear about Holiday’s back-phrasing, the relaxed, behind-the-beat entry that can make even a familiar melody seem both fresh and intimate. She explains it simply: come in a couple of beats late, reshape the line, and sync with the rhythm section’s groove. Importantly, the singer isn’t “late” at all; the timing stays precise while the melody shifts and leans. Like Louis Armstrong, Holiday could distill a phrase to just a few notes and let color and emphasis carry the expression. “She never fell behind rhythmically,” Heath says. “She just reshaped the melody.” Hearing that idea connect with an audience is one of the reasons Heath keeps returning to this material.

The program’s structure reflects Holiday’s journey. Heath tends to start in the late 1930s—songs that seem lively on the surface but already show Holiday’s knack for subtext—then shifts toward slower tempos and darker tones. The set list varies each show, but you can expect classics like “God Bless the Child,” “Billie’s Blues,” and “I’ll Be Seeing You,” along with less-frequented gems that demonstrate Holiday’s versatility. Heath also enjoys placing Holiday alongside other traditions: “No Regrets,” for example, can be understood differently when compared with Édith Piaf’s similarly titled anthem, a reminder that parallel truths can come from very different worlds.

“Strange Fruit” is the focal point. Heath usually ends with it, giving the song the space it deserves and letting the silence afterward resonate. She openly discusses the risk Holiday took in 1939 and how that risk still echoes today. The goal isn’t to shock, she says, but to witness—to show how a three-minute song can encapsulate a chapter of American history and still feel immediate in a small room.

The Joe Henderson Lab is perfect for this kind of intensity. With about a hundred seats and a warm, clear sound, the space encourages conversational interactions: the texture of a voice close-up, a clarinet’s shadow beneath a note, a cymbal that whispers. Heath leans into that closeness. “We aim for the lyric to sit right in the listener’s ear,” she says—story first, technique supporting it.

Her sextet is crafted for nuance and conversation: Neil Fontano (piano), Robby Elfman (reeds), Ian Scherer (guitar), Daniel Fabricant (bass), and Spike Klein (drums). The arrangements favor era-appropriate voicings and a light, flexible swing; they also leave space for quick turns, commentary fills, and the small surprises that keep a tribute feeling vibrant. Pianist Fontano plays a key role in shaping transitions and pacing. The rhythm section remains supple, allowing Heath to lean on or against the beat without losing momentum.

Stella Heath. Photo credit: Fred Aube.

Variety is another promise. “Completely different set, except for ‘Strange Fruit,’” Heath says of the four shows—two on Saturday, September 6 (7:00 and 8:30 p.m.), and two on Sunday, September 7 (6:00 and 7:30 p.m.). That choice encourages repeat listeners and highlights how Holiday’s music changes with the context. Starting with swing-era material, the evening feels one way; beginning in the shadows, everything afterward seems different. It’s part scholarship, part showmanship, and entirely true to Holiday’s own habit of treating a second chorus as commentary on the first.

If the project has a thesis, it’s that Holiday’s genius lies as much in discipline as in drama. Heath emphasizes economy—what to leave out, when to wait for the right moment, when to narrow the melodic range so every micro-shade counts. She points to consonants that bite just enough, vowels that open a fraction longer than expected, and endings that land softly but decisively. These are small choices, but when combined, they form a method. The concerts aim to make that method visible without drawing attention away from the songs.

What you won’t find is nostalgia trapped in glass. The band employs the language of the era, but the goal is a connection rooted in the present tense. One chorus might pay homage to a classic interpretation; the next could shift, brightening the harmony or tugging the rhythm just enough to make the line stand out differently. Heath’s narration follows the same principle: minimal, specific, and always a step behind the music, never ahead of it.

For audiences, the invitation is simple: hear a body of work that still cuts to the bone, presented by a singer intent on clarity and feeling rather than imitation. Come hear how phrasing can change the temperature of a room, how a late entrance remakes a melody, how “Strange Fruit” still asks us to listen past comfort. In a venue built for intimacy, with a band attuned to breath and story, Stella Heath’s Billie Holiday Project offers four chances to encounter an artist you know—and to hear her again as if for the first time.

This article accompanies the Backstage Bay Area interview with Stella Heath. It discusses her conversation about Billie Holiday’s art and legacy, the interpretive choices behind her Billie Holiday Project, and her upcoming four-set run at SFJAZZ Center’s Joe Henderson Lab.