Ella Fitzgerald – Milestones Of A Jazz Legend

Carmen McRae (1922 - 1994) was one of the great jazz vocalists of the 20th century – next to Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. Born in Harlem, New York, she played the piano at "Minton's Playhouse” in the 1940s, a club where the young beboppers like Dizzy Gillespie and Carmen's husband-to-be Kenny Clarke developed this new music. Next important career steps were an engagement with the Benny Carter band as a pianist and with Count Basie - as a singer. Having spent four years in Chicago from 1948 on, she finally signed an artist contract in her hometown New York and went on to release twelve albums over the next five years.

Bernard "Buddy" Rich (1917-1987) is considered one of the best and most influential drummers in the world, not only among jazz drummers, but also for rock- and pop-stars such as Phil Collins and Led Zeppelins Jon Bonham. At twenty-years of age, the son of two vaudeville artists began his career as a jazz musician, at first in the big bands of Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey (including Frank Sinatra), Harry James, Woody Herman, and Count Basie. With the financial help of Sinatra, with whom he enjoyed a lifelong friendship, he founded his own band in 1946, which also featured him as a vocalist. Producer Norman Granz particularly appreciated Rich and his drumming and hired him for sessions with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk, or as an accompanist on masterpieces by Louis Armstrong with Ella Fitzgerald. In addition to his famous encounters with Art Tatum, Lester Young, Lionel Hampton, Nat King Cole and Flip Phillips, Rich also played famous "duels" with his drum-colleagues Gene Krupa and Max Roach. His three albums as a vocalist are wonderful, with only a little something missing that would have made him Sinatras rival.