3/11/2023 0 Comments Ella fitzgerald songbookThe eight Song Book albums, originally released between 19, are occasionally trying exercises in patience (the longest set, the Gershwin Song Book album, contains over fifty songs), but there is much excellent music on The Complete Ella Fitzgerald Song Books, released as a 16-CD box set in 1993. Highlighting the work of individual songwriters and teams like Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and George and Ira Gershwin, these album helped build Fitzgerald's reputation in mainstream pop circles and solidified her legendary status in jazz as a joyful "musician's singer." Originally a "girl singer" leading drummer Chick Webb's big band in the 1930s, Jazz vocal giant Ella Fitzgerald transformed into the iconic "First Lady of Song" during the '50s and '60s, in large part because of her Song Book albums for Verve Records. It may have been an old idea thought of again, but it is a brilliant concept, one that the entire record industry has replicated many times since.Įlla Fitzgerald Sings The Rodgers and Hart Songbook can be bought here.The CHIRP Blog Josh Friedberg: Music Historian's Corner writes Rediscovering Our Record Collections: “The Complete Ella Fitzgerald Song Books” It was an idea he tried out with Oscar Peterson on Clef records, one of Granz’s labels before he started Verve. But it should not go unmentioned what a clever idea it was by Granz to create this series of recordings with his most prized asset on Verve Records. It’s Ella’s performances that make these two collections, and the other songbooks she did in the series, so brilliant and, by the same token, so important. Other standouts include “There’s a Small Hotel,” “You Took Advantage of Me,” and the perennial, “My Funny Valentine.” It’s not difficult to hear why many think Ella is the best jazz singer of the 20th century. When she goes into the chorus of “We’ll have Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island too,” she swings it so effortlessly. It includes “Manhattan” which has one of the most sublime moments on any Ella recording. It is a beautiful album, full of standards that everyone knows and loves, but in Ella’s hands these song become even more special. Trumpeter, Maynard Ferguson, Milt Bernhart’s trombone, Herb Geller, and Ted Nash and Bud Shank doubling on clarinets and saxophone, Barney Kessel on guitar, and drummer Alvin Stoller.Įlla Fitzgerald Sings The Rodgers and Hart Songbook did even better than the Cole Porter Songbook on the Billboard album charts, making No.11 on the chart in March 1957. Like its predecessor it features the cream of West Coast session musicians, many of whom graced the fabulous recordings that Frank Sinatra was making around the same time in the same studio. On August 21, 1956, Ella, Granz, and Bregman began work on their next songbook: Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Rodgers and Hart Songbook. 18 on the list of bestsellers for the whole year, one that was dominated by soundtrack albums. By the end of the year, the double LP was No. In September Ella was the headliner on the annual Jazz at the Philharmonic autumn tour of America. 15 on the Billboard Best Sellers list after Verve had taken an extensive advertising campaign in Esquire, The New Yorker, High Fidelity, and a dozen Sunday Newspapers across America. The 32 track Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Cole Porter Songbook came out on May 15, 1956, as a double album and sold for $9.96.
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