Carnegie Hall’s Concert of the Century Gala became a love letter to tomorrow

Carnegie Hall’s Concert of the Century Gala became a love letter to tomorrow

Of all the myths I carried as a young girl in Texas, Billie Holiday at Carnegie Hall may have been among the most dangerous. Not dangerous in the obvious way, perhaps, but in the way beauty can become a private wound. I watched the old clips and recordings with the stunned devotion of someone trying to understand how one room could hold that much ache, glamour, history, and sound. I remember wondering what it would feel like to sit inside that g…