Ella Live

Truly a gem of recordings of this genius of jazz, accompanied by the best musicians such as Hank Jones, Ray Brown, Lester Young, etc. Highly recommended!

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 & Duke Ellington - Ella & Duke at The Cote D'Azur (1966) {2CD Set Verve 314-539-030-2 rel 1997}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 585 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 214 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 201 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1966, 1997 Verve / PolyGram | 314-539-030-2
Jazz / Classical Jazz / Vocal Jazz / Standards / Swing / Big Band

Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington did not team up in concert until relatively late in their careers (although she did record her Ellington Songbook with him in the '50s). This live double-LP actually finds Fitzgerald singing six numbers with the Jimmy Jones Trio and only "Mack the Knife" and a scat-filled "It Don't Mean a Thing" with the orchestra. Ellington has eight numbers for his band, mostly remakes of older tunes (including a guest appearance by former associate Ben Webster on "All Too Soon," a remarkable Buster Cooper trombone feature, and a rowdy version of "The Old Circus Train Turn-Around Blues"). This is a spirited set of music that with better planning could have been great.

Jazz Icons: Sarah Vaughan features the “Divine One” in her prime, wrapping her sultry voice around jazz standards such as “Lover Man”, “Misty” and “I Got Rhythm” and soaring on popular showtunes such as “Over The Rainbow” and “Maria”. One of the greatest voices of the 20th Century, her renditions of songs by Harold Arlen, Leonard Bernstein, Johnny Burke, the Gershwins and Stephen Sondheim are pure diva magic. These three performances demonstrate why Sarah Vaughan is invariably mentioned in the same breath as Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.

The Complete Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong On Verve (3 CD) (1997)

This compact, stylishly packaged, three-disc box set delivers exactly what the title promises: every one of the 47 master tracks (including a few unreleased tracks) recorded by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong for Verve between August 1956 and October 1957. The jazz standards and pop songs on disc one and two are what gained the most attention at the time, and justifiably so - Fitzgerald and Armstrong are possibly the two greatest scat singers in jazz history, and under Norman Granz's magnificent tutelage, both perform at the best of their abilities.

Although Ella Fitzgerald had been on the jazz scene for over four decades by the time of this 1975 concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival, she still knew how to swing and keep the audience in the palm of her hand. Backed by lyrical pianist Tommy Flanagan, the solid bassist Keter Betts and the driving drummer Bobby Durham, the vocalist wows the crowd with a mix of standards, popular jazz compositions and ballads in a way that only she could do it. Even though her voice shows evidence of a little more vibrato on her held notes at the end of a phrase (especially on the ballads), she still emotes like no one else, occasionally adding some playful scat in the up-tempo numbers and captivating the audience with her romp through "How High the Moon," a piece she kept fresh even though she had performed it hundreds of times over the years…

This attractive three-CD set gives listeners an overview of Ella Fitzgerald's Verve recordings, although the inclusion of seven previously unissued cuts (in addition to 44 that are mostly available in more complete form elsewhere) will frustrate some completists. However the careful selection of representative performances along with the informative and lengthy text make this highly enjoyable reissue (which captures her in prime form) recommended even to collectors who have most of the singer's albums.

Ella Fitzgerald - Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie
Vinyl Rip in 24-Bit/96-kHz | FLAC tracks | no cue | no log | Covers | FS, MU, HF | 1 GB 3% rec
1961 | Genre: Jazz Vocal | Label: Verve | V6-4053 | US pressing reissue by ClassicRecords, Limited Edition

Although not reaching the heights of her live performances, this is an excellent (and somewhat underrated) set.

( Scott Yanow - AllMusic Guide )