For Ella

Patti Austin is well qualified to record an album in the style of Ella Fitzgerald, having spent her career shadowing the paths taken by Fitzgerald and her contemporaries. Although she has worked in R&B-oriented adult pop much of the time, she is clearly in the tradition of Fitzgerald, and in 1988 she even recorded an album of standards that she tellingly titled The Real Me. For Ella easily could be the sequel to that collection.

This admittedly pricey - but by all means mandatory - Grammy Award-winning box set is the final word on the "songbooks" recorded by Ella Fitzgerald between 1956 and 1964. The audio contents have been completely remastered and each title has been expanded - wherever possible - to include previously unissued material. In terms of packaging, the producers went to extreme lengths to create exact reproductions of all the vintage LP jacket artwork. Even going so far as to precisely miniaturize the entire hardbound text The Gershwins: Words Upon Music that accompanied their 1959 collection as well as the booklet that came with the Ellington anthology…

Ella Fitzgerald - The Complete 1960-1961 Ella In Berlin (2017) {Essential Jazz Classics EJC55719}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 509 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 318 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 83 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1960-61, 2017 Verve / Essential Jazz Classics | EJC55719
Jazz / Classical Jazz / Vocal Jazz / Standards

Its Ella Fitzgerald so it is going to be a delight to listen to, The original album called Mack The Knife : Ella In Berlin is a live album recorded, well you guess where! It includes the wonderful improvised version of Mack The Knife where Ella forgets the words and improvises a whole new song and this song contains what is great about this album also what is great about Ella Fitzgerald and that is the sheer unalloyed joy in singing it comes across in the giggling thank yous between songs and her rapport with band and audience, also included is a wonderful version of How High The Moon and Too Darn Hot. This expanded version also incudes another concert from Berlin with another version of Mack The Knife as well as tracks from a concert in Cannes and the Hollywood Bowl. So what's not to like it's Ella at her height doing what she enjoyed doing, it is a joy.

Ella Fitzgerald virtually invented the live album. The reason is simple: her performances were so consistently great that almost any live show was special enough to release as a record. In a sense, for Ella Fitzgerald, every night was The Moment of Truth. But this previously unknown concert stands out from the pack. In the summer of 1967 Ella Fitzgerald was in a particularly interesting place. She was in the middle of an especially rewarding three-year touring and recording collaboration with Duke Ellington and was incorporating hit pop songs of the late-60s into her concert repertoire—two of which are presented here for the first time on record.

Ella Fitzgerald - Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Duke Ellington Song Book (1957) {3CD Set Verve Master Edition 559 248-2 rel 1999}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 715 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 503 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 540 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1957, 1999 Verve / PolyGram | 559 248-2 | Verve Master Edition Series
Jazz / Vocal Jazz / Standards

This release comes in a cardboard box which houses a 4-panel Digisleeve and a 66-page booklet. Ella Fitzgerald's outstanding songbook series has become an institution unto itself. This 1957 effort is distinguished from Fitzgerald's other songbooks in that it is the only album in which the composer whose work she is singing actively participates. In fact, these recordings are packed with some of the key figures in 20th century jazz. As if Ella and Duke weren't enough, Ellington's arranger/composer Billy Strayhorn, guest musicians Dizzy Gillespie and Oscar Peterson, and brilliant record producer Norman Granz all have a hand in the proceedings.