Ella Fitzgerald Songbook

It is difficult to know where to begin when approaching an artist as wonderful as Ella Fitzgerald, especially when covering a revered recording like Sings the Irving Berlin Song Book from the late '50s. This set includes two CDs with 32 songs chosen from Berlin's collection of nearly 800 songs. These selections are perfectly suited for Fitzgerald's voice and her romantic sensibility; they are happy, occasionally sad, and full of swinging rhythm. A few of these songs - "Cheek to Cheek," "Puttin' on the Ritz," and "Blue Skies" - will be most familiar; others, "Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails," "Russian Lullaby," and "All By Myself" are as memorable but perhaps less known. Choices like "Isn't This a Lovely Day?" feature everything a listener would want in a song: intelligent lyrics, memorable melodies, and a strong emotional center…

The second of Ella Fitzgerald's famed Songbook series features her singing 34 of the best songs co-written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. The arrangements by Buddy Bregman for the string orchestra and big band only border on jazz but she manages to swing the medium-tempo numbers and give sensitivity to the ballads. With such songs as "You Took Advantage of Me," "The Lady Is a Tramp," "It Never Entered My Mind," "Where or When," "My Funny Valentine," and "Blue Moon," it is not too surprising that these recordings were so popular.

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.

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.

Ella Fitzgerald’s Verve songbook albums of the mid-’50s to mid-’60s stand as cultural landmarks, but there’s scant documentation of her performing these composer-specific projects live in concert. This unissued Irving Berlin item, from the personal collection of Verve founder Norman Granz, is a head-turning exception. With a full orchestra arranged and conducted by Paul Weston (who worked on the 1958 studio album as well), the First Lady of Song offers 15 gems from one of the world’s greatest composers, Israel Beilin (1888-1989).