Ella Fitzgerald - Portrait Of Ella Fitzgerald '1996

Artist	Ella Fitzgerald Related artists
Album name	Portrait Of Ella Fitzgerald
Country
Date	1996
Genre
Play time	53:40
Format / Bitrate	Stereo 1420 Kbps / 44.1 kHz MP3 320 Kbps
Media	CD
Size	153 Mb
Price	Download $1.95

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Tracks list

Tracklist:

01. This Love Of Mine
02. Its Only A Paper Moon
03. Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall
04. I Got A Guy
05. Swing Me A Swing Song
06. Shine
07. Somebody Nobody Knows
08. Make Love To Me
09. Thats The Way It Is
10. When I Get Low I Get High
11. Darktown Strutters Ball
12. Cryin Mood
13. Time Alone Will Tell
14. And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine
15. Once Too Often
16. If You Should Ever Leave
17. A Little Bit Later On
18. Just A Simple Melody

Â The First Lady of Song, Ella Fitzgerald was arguably the finest female jazz
singer of all time (although some may vote for Sarah Vaughan or Billie Holiday).
Blessed with a beautiful voice and a wide range, Fitzgerald could outswing
anyone, was a brilliant scat singer, and had near-perfect elocution; one could
always understand the words she sang. The one fault was that, since she always
sounded so happy to be singing, Fitzgerald did not always dig below the surface
of the lyrics she interpreted and she even made a downbeat song such as Love for
Sale sound joyous. However, when one evaluates her career on a whole, there is
simply no one else in her class.

One could never guess from her singing that Ella Fitzgeralds early days were as
grim as Billie Holidays. Growing up in poverty, Fitzgerald was literally
homeless for the year before she got her big break. In 1934, she appeared at the
Apollo Theater in Harlem, winning an amateur contest by singing Judy in the
style of her idol, Connee Boswell. After a short stint with Tiny Bradshaw,
Fitzgerald was brought to the attention of Chick Webb by Benny Carter (who was
in the audience at the Apollo). Webb, who was not impressed by the 17-year-olds
appearance, was reluctantly persuaded to let her sing with his orchestra on a
one-nighter. She went over well and soon the drummer recognized her commercial
potential. Starting in 1935, Fitzgerald began recording with Webbs Orchestra,
and by 1937 over half of the bands selections featured her voice. A-Tisket,
A-Tasket became a huge hit in 1938 and Undecided soon followed. During this era,
Fitzgerald was essentially a pop/swing singer who was best on ballads while her
medium-tempo performances were generally juvenile novelties. She already had a
beautiful voice but did not improvise or scat much; that would develop later.

On June 16, 1939, Chick Webb died. It was decided that Fitzgerald would front
the orchestra even though she had little to do with the repertoire or hiring or
firing the musicians. She retained her popularity and when she broke up the band
in 1941 and went solo; it was not long before her Decca recordings contained
more than their share of hits. She was teamed with the Ink Spots, Louis Jordan,
and the Delta Rhythm Boys for some best-sellers, and in 1946 began working
regularly for Norman Granzs Jazz at the Philharmonic. Granz became her manager
although it would be nearly a decade before he could get her on his label. A
major change occurred in Fitzgeralds singing around this period. She toured with
Dizzy Gillespies big band, adopted bop as part of her style, and started
including exciting scat-filled romps in her set. Her recordings of Lady Be Good,
How High the Moon, and Flying Home during 1945-1947 became popular and her
stature as a major jazz singer rose as a result. For a time (December 10,
1947-August 28, 1953) she was married to bassist Ray Brown and used his trio as
a backup group. Fitzgeralds series of duets with pianist Ellis Larkins in 1950
(a 1954 encore with Larkins was a successful follow-up) found her interpreting
George Gershwin songs, predating her upcoming Songbooks series.

Mack the Knife: Ella in Berlin After appearing in the film Pete Kellys Blues in
1955, Fitzgerald signed with Norman Granzs Verve label and over the next few
years she would record extensive Songbooks of the music of Cole Porter, the
Gershwins, Rodgers & Hart, Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, and Johnny
Mercer. Although (with the exception of the Ellington sets) those were not her
most jazz-oriented projects (Fitzgerald stuck mostly to the melody and was
generally accompanied by string orchestras), the prestigious projects did a
great deal to uplift her stature. At the peak of her powers around 1960,
Fitzgeralds hilarious live version of Mack the Knife (in which she forgot the
words and made up her own) from Ella in Berlin is a classic and virtually all of
her Verve recordings are worth getting.
Fitzgeralds Capitol and Reprise recordings of 1967-1970 are not on the same
level as she attempted to update her singing by including pop songs such as
Sunny and I Heard It Through the Grapevine, sounding quite silly in the process.
But Fitzgeralds later years were saved by Norman Granzs decision to form a new
label, Pablo. Starting with a Santa Monica Civic concert in 1972 that is
climaxed by Fitzgeralds incredible version of C Jam Blues (in which she trades
off with and battles five classic jazzmen), Fitzgerald was showcased in jazz
settings throughout the 1970s with the likes of Count Basie, Oscar Peterson, and
Joe Pass, among others. Her voice began to fade during this era and by the 1980s
her decline due to age was quite noticeable. Troubles with her eyes and heart
knocked her out of action for periods of time, although her increasingly rare
appearances found Fitzgerald still retaining her sense of swing and joyful
style. By 1994, Ella Fitzgerald was in retirement and she passed away two years
later, but she remains a household name and scores of her recordings are easily
available on CD.