Jazz singer Billie Holiday, left, and composer Duke Ellington, center, rehearse "Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life" in 1935. Fans and artists are celebrating Lady Day, as she was known, on the 100th anniversary of her birth on April 7, 1915. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Louis Armstrong and Holiday pose for a portrait in 1939. JP Jazz Archive/Redferns/Getty Images

Holiday performs "Fine and Mellow" accompanied by James P. Johnson on piano in 1943. Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

Holiday performs in the Esquire Jam Session at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1944. Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

Holiday performs at Carnegie Hall in New York in 1948 during the peak of her musical career. Redferns/Getty Images

Holiday performs under a spotlight at a club in 1954. Getty Images

From left, Holiday, performs with musicians Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins and Gerry Mulligan on the CBS television program "The Seven Lively Arts" in New York in 1957. CBS/Landov

Holiday sings at the Olympia in Paris in 1958. Dalle/Andre Sas/Landov