Ella+fitzgerald

10 CD box set of sixteen original jazz albums from the Godmother of female jazz, Ella Fitzgerald. Including the legendary Porgy and Bess with Louis Armstrong and milestone recordings like Ella sings Gershwin and Rhythm is My Business.

With the death of Chick Webb in 1939, his big band was temporarily without a leader. Since Ella Fitzgerald had become the orchestra's most popular attraction, she was put at its head even though she had very little to do with the music. The Webb management, musical director Teddy McRae and trumpeter Taft Jordan actually ran the show, but Fitzgerald was still virtually the only female singer (other than Ina Ray Hutton) to be the leader of her own big band during the era. The experiment would last for two years, until Fitzgerald started her own remarkably successful solo career in 1941. While most of the band's recordings after Webb's death featured Fitzgerald's vocals, the four radio broadcasts that comprise this two-CD set have the orchestra taking instrumentals on over one-third of the material…

Ella Fitzgerald Live! was markedly different than the Songbook Ella. The self-possessed stylist could let her hair down and wail like a tenor player at an all-night jam. These 14 titles, recorded at six different venues with nine different ensembles, find her jamming and scatting and bubbling and reminiscing (in tempo, of course) with trios and quartets and all-stars and Ellington.

Ella Fitzgerald had the ability to personalize some of the most recognizable material from the foremost songwriters in American popular music history. In this instance, the combination of Cole Porter's words and Fitzgerald's interpretation of them created one of the most sought after sessions in vocal history - embraced by jazz and pop fans alike, transcending boundaries often associated with those genres. Originally released in 1956 on the Verve label, such standards as "Night and Day," "I Love Paris," "What Is This Thing Called Love," "I've Got You Under My Skin," "You're the Top," and "Love for Sale" secured one of Ella Fitzgerald's crowning moments. The success of these early Porter (and previous Gershwin) sessions brought about numerous interpretations of other songbooks throughout the next several years including those of Rodgers and Hart, Duke Ellington, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen, and Irving Berlin.

Recorded in 1967 and originally released that same year by Capitol Records as an LP (and re-released seasonally several times since then), Ella Fitzgerald's Christmas is a rarity among rarities in that it is a holiday album that actually holds up as a mature artistic statement. Oh, the songs are familiar, with Fitzgerald tackling 13 standards like "Silent Night," "Joy to the World," and "We Three Kings," but in her hands they become vehicles for her precise yet natural-sounding elocution and subtle, confident vocal phrasing. In other words, she sings these songs like they're fresh and new to the world, and that's no easy task. The end result is one of the best Christmas albums ever made.

Ella and Louis is an inspired collaboration, masterminded by producer Norman Granz. Both artists were riding high at this stage in their careers, and Granz assembled a stellar quartet of Oscar Peterson (piano), Buddy Rich (drums), Herb Ellis (guitar) and Ray Brown (bass). Equally inspired was the choice of material, with the gruffness of Armstrong's voice blending like magic with Fitzgerald's stunningly silky delivery. Outstanding are Irving Berlin's "Cheek to Cheek" and "Isn't This a Lovely Day," and everything else works like a dream, with the golden star going to the Gershwin brothers' "They Can't Take That Away from Me." Gentle and sincere, this is deserving of a place in every home.