Records "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" with Teddy Wilson’s orchestra, a defining early hit.
On 24 March 1938, Billie Holiday recorded "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" in New York with pianist Teddy Wilson and his orchestra for Brunswick Records.
Though initially one title among many Wilson–Holiday collaborations, the recording soon emerged as one of Holiday’s signature performances. Her playful, rhythmically elastic treatment transforms a relatively simple popular song into a model of jazz vocal phrasing. She bends notes, delays entries, and subtly rewrites the melody, turning the tune into a vehicle for her own personality rather than reproducing it as written.
This session is historically significant because it helped establish Holiday’s reputation as a recording star independent of any single band. In the mid‑1930s, many female vocalists were marketed as interchangeable "girl singers" with big bands; Holiday’s work with Wilson, and particularly "What a Little Moonlight Can Do," signaled that a jazz singer could be an artist in her own right. The record’s enduring popularity has made it a standard and an early touchstone for understanding how Holiday redefined the possibilities of popular song interpretation.