Ella Ray

Although Ella Fitzgerald worked in many different settings, from big bands to guitar-and-voice duets to sets with nearly every piano player in the business (from Duke Ellington on down), one could make a case that her best recordings were made with Oscar Peterson and his small bands. Released in 1976, Ella and Oscar is one of those classic recordings, an album that's as spare and intimate as any that the pair ever issued. In fact, the only other performer featured on this set is Peterson's longtime bassist Ray Brown, whose contributions are minimal. These songs, from the mellifluous "Mean to Me" to a languid "April in Paris," are simple and beautiful.

Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong make for a charming team on this CD. Accompanied by pianist Oscar Peterson, guitarist Herb Ellis, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Buddy Rich, Fitzgerald and Armstrong perform 11 standards with joy and swing. There are touches of Satch's trumpet, but this is primarily a vocal set with the emphasis on tasteful renditions of ballads. Its follow-up, Ella & Louis Again, is also worth getting. ~ AllMusic

Part of a Fantasy sampler series that features musicians (and in this case a notable vocalist) performing the blues, this CD features Ella Fitzgerald on 11 performances taken from a variety of sessions. Although she never specialized in the blues, Ella had no difficulty swinging over blues changes and sometimes putting strong emotion into the lowdown variety. There is one song apiece from the 1950s and '60s, while the remainder of the program dates from 1971-1979.

Ella Fitzgerald's entry in the Verve Diva Series is a 16-track compilation that selects tracks from the first three decades of her recording career. Beginning with 1938's smash hit "A-Tisket, A-Tasket," the disc covers her hot and swinging big-band days in the late '30s and early '40s through her triumphant songbook records of the 1950s. The tracks compiled here include some of the songs that she made her own, like "Oh, Lady Be Good," "(You'll Have to Swing It) Mr. Paganini, Pts. 1-2," "How High the Moon," and the song she shares with Bobby Darin, "Mack the Knife," as well as lots of other great songs.

A massively comprehensive look at the earliest years of Ella Fitzgerald on record – the legendary recordings she made with the Chick Webb orchestra at the end of the 30s and start of the 40s! Ella was way more than just another singer with a band – as her presence in the Webb group really dominated its recording history, so much so that there were nearly five times as many Chick Webb singles with vocals by Ella as there were instrumentals by the group! Fitzgerald's placement was for good reason, too – as her singing abilities were landmark – almost more with the deftness of an instrument than most other singers who'd come before, and developed amazingly over the course of the seven years presented in the set. If you only know Ella from all her later famous sides – and plenty of those are wonderful, too – you'll find even more to love here – a beautifully remastered presentation of 187 titles that were originally issued on 78rpm singles, all collected here for the first time ever – with amazing notes, photos, and details on all the music. The set's not only a great illustration of the strength of the Webb and Fitzgerald team, but also of the way that Mosaic's talents for compilation can work especially well for the pre-LP years of jazz!

This is an eight-CD set more for Duke Ellington fanatics than for general listeners. Originally, some of the music came out as a two-LP set (Ella and Duke at the Cote D'Azur) and a single album (Ellington's Soul Call), but the great majority of the material was previously unreleased when this box came out in 1998.