Ella Fitzgerald

December 31, 1955 at GMT-8

Ella and Louis

Ella Fitzgerald was early in her historic run on Norman Granz’s Verve label when she was paired up with the great Louis Armstrong in the summer of 1956 for Ella and Louis. Their Porgy & Bess album followed soon after, as did Ella and Louis Again (all of it collected on The Complete Ella and Louis on Verve). The alchemy between the two giants is a marvel in the annals of American song. They take a simple approach that essentially can’t go wrong: beautiful expressive standards, uncluttered arrangements, virtuoso small-group backing from pianist Oscar Peterson’s working unit with bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Herb Ellis—plus Buddy Rich on drums, as exquisitely delicate as you’ll ever hear him. Taking separate choruses or harmonizing in vivacious and perfectly timed call-and-response (with Armstrong on trumpet and voice), the partners casually arrive at version after definitive version of these adored songs, pouring themselves equally into shimmering ballads (“Moonlight in Vermont,” “Stars Fell on Alabama”) and levitating midtempo swingers (“Can’t We Be Friends,” “Under a Blanket of Blue”). Fitzgerald’s masterful Armstrong impression in the last phrase of “Tenderly” captures the fun of it all.

11 Tracks

November 24, 2016 at PST

Ella & Louis Christmas

20 Tracks

October 31, 1960 at GMT-8

Ella Wishes You A Swinging Christmas

12 Tracks

June 13, 2005 at PDT

Ella & Louis for Lovers

Call it a mix of sandpaper and silk if you like, but no vocal duet has ever sounded sweeter. The sheer joy of their contrasting styles—Ella the perfectionist, Louis the naturalist—brings as much pleasure as almost any jazz record ever. Producer Norman Granz, whose taste in rhythm sections was flawless, hand-selected the supporting players here, and the rest—Louis and Ella’s righteous readings of the some of this century’s greatest songs—is simply heaven on earth.

11 Tracks

September 20, 1993 at PDT

The Best of the Song Books

16 Tracks

August 19, 1997 at PDT

The Best Of Ella Fitzgerald And Louis Armstrong On Verve

15 Tracks

February 14, 1994 at PST

Pure Ella

This vibrant sampler captures the swinging variety of Fitzgerald’s work for Verve, touching on her iconic collaborations, indelible singles, and some thrilling live cuts. Her prowess with scatted improvisation makes her rendition of “Mack the Knife” instantly memorable, and her smooth tones pay dividends when playing with Count Basie (“Tea for Two“). Her famous partnership with Duke Ellington is represented here on “Take the ‘A’ Train,” and her bluesy rapport with Satch shines on “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.”

18 Tracks

March 31, 1958 at GMT-8

Porgy and Bess

Producer Norman Granz recorded these singular American talents for Verve in 1956 (Ella & Louis) and 1957 (Ella & Louis Again) before he landed this absolute stunner of a double album. Recorded just months after Ella & Louis Again, Porgy & Bess also preceded Fitzgerald’s Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook of 1959 (with arranger/conductor Nelson Riddle). It’s a vital addition to Fitzgerald’s Verve songbook recordings, offering an extended look at a particular slice of Gershwin, one that has proven attractive to a great many jazz artists. (Miles Davis and Gil Evans released their own, radically different Porgy and Bess in March 1959.) Ella and Pops convey a deep emotional connection to the story of what Gershwin called his “folk opera,” with Russell Garcia’s evocative and swinging large-ensemble arrangements framing their utterly dissimilar yet highly complementary voices.

The reception history of Gershwin’s ambitious venture (which premiered in 1935, two years before the composer’s death at 38) is extremely complex, as it must be when a celebrated white composer attempts a tableau of African American life in the distinctly African American vernacular of blues and jazz. Black composers including Scott Joplin strove to create a distinctly American “folk opera” medium decades before Gershwin, but received little recognition. And even in the ’30s, Porgy and Bess was criticized for furthering damaging stereotypes. Armstrong, often wrongly accused of being soft on racism and civil rights, had his own painful struggle against accusations of “tomming.” Hearing him in this context inevitably raises these issues. But the music itself, in its sheer rapturous beauty, transcends them.

Armstrong’s trumpet is a thing of jewel-like melodic perfection on the initial chorus of “I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin’,” as is Fitzgerald’s delivery of the song’s triumphant lyric “I am glad I’m alive.” Armstrong opens “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” with a heartbreaking out-of-tempo vocal, answered by Fitzgerald’s confident glide into tempo on the words “Porgy, I’s your woman now.” Her nuanced expression on the rhyming phrase “There’s no wrinkle on my brow” is sent down from the heavens. Armstrong gives a master class on swing, the feel he essentially invented back in the ’20s, in his vocal solo feature on “A Woman Is a Sometime Thing.” And Fitzgerald’s solo ballad “I Wants to Stay Here” (a.k.a. “I Loves You, Porgy”) is simply breathtaking. “My Man’s Gone Now” and the interludes “Buzzard Song” and “Oh, Doctor Jesus” are haunting, even unsettling, uncharacteristically so for the First Lady of Song. These elements and more make Porgy & Bess one of the great vocal albums of the era, and arguably of all time.

15 Tracks

December 31, 1955 at GMT-8

Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook (Expanded Edition)

Ella Fitzgerald, a star of Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic concert series since 1949, seemed to Granz an ideal fit for his new Verve label, so he signed her in 1955, luring her away from Decca in something of a coup. Right away the plan was to position her as a singer with a command of the American pop songbook, on par with a figure like Sinatra. Jazz connoisseurs admired her for her solid swing feel and breakneck scatting, her ability to go head-to-head onstage with the era's great soloists. Granz knew she possessed greater versatility, and with the Verve songbooks he sought to connect her to the widest possible audience.

Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook was the first of what would be eight albums in this vein, each devoted to a single composer. Porter would be followed by Rodgers & Hart, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, the Gershwins, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, and finally Johnny Mercer in 1964. Most of these writers, save for Porter and Berlin, had lyricist partners (Mercer was primarily known as a lyricist, not a composer). So the Porter songbook attests not only to his timeless melodies and creative, often elongated song forms (“In the Still of the Night,” “Begin the Beguine”), but also to his peerless wordplay and wit (“Too Darn Hot,” “You’re the Top,” “Always True to You in My Fashion”). Fitzgerald nails the delivery and the fun in all of it, but also captures the tragedy and pervasive unease of a song like “Miss Otis Regrets” (played in duet with session pianist Paul Smith).

Will Friedwald, in A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers, argues that the first two Ella songbooks, Porter and Rodgers & Hart, suffer in comparison to those arranged by Nelson Riddle. Still, Buddy Bregman’s Porter arrangements have their charm; the band features Bud Shank, Barney Kessel, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Maynard Ferguson, and other top talent. There was a bigger-picture consideration as well, which Friedwald notes: “As the album format became more and more important to the music business, Fitzgerald was perfectly poised to assume her position as queen of the long-playing disc.” It was Norman Granz, Fitzgerald’s manager long after he sold Verve to MGM in 1960, who helped put her there.

35 Tracks

December 31, 1955 at GMT-8

Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book

Ella Fitzgerald, a star of Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic concert series since 1949, seemed to Granz an ideal fit for his new Verve label, so he signed her in 1955, luring her away from Decca in something of a coup. Right away the plan was to position her as a singer with a command of the American pop songbook, on par with a figure like Sinatra. Jazz connoisseurs admired her for her solid swing feel and breakneck scatting, her ability to go head-to-head onstage with the era's great soloists. Granz knew she possessed greater versatility, and with the Verve songbooks he sought to connect her to the widest possible audience.

Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook was the first of what would be eight albums in this vein, each devoted to a single composer. Porter would be followed by Rodgers & Hart, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, the Gershwins, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, and finally Johnny Mercer in 1964. Most of these writers, save for Porter and Berlin, had lyricist partners (Mercer was primarily known as a lyricist, not a composer). So the Porter songbook attests not only to his timeless melodies and creative, often elongated song forms (“In the Still of the Night,” “Begin the Beguine”), but also to his peerless wordplay and wit (“Too Darn Hot,” “You’re the Top,” “Always True to You in My Fashion”). Fitzgerald nails the delivery and the fun in all of it, but also captures the tragedy and pervasive unease of a song like “Miss Otis Regrets” (played in duet with session pianist Paul Smith).

Will Friedwald, in A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers, argues that the first two Ella songbooks, Porter and Rodgers & Hart, suffer in comparison to those arranged by Nelson Riddle. Still, Buddy Bregman’s Porter arrangements have their charm; the band features Bud Shank, Barney Kessel, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Maynard Ferguson, and other top talent. There was a bigger-picture consideration as well, which Friedwald notes: “As the album format became more and more important to the music business, Fitzgerald was perfectly poised to assume her position as queen of the long-playing disc.” It was Norman Granz, Fitzgerald’s manager long after he sold Verve to MGM in 1960, who helped put her there.

32 Tracks

April 5, 2018 at PDT

Cheek To Cheek: The Complete Duet Recordings

75 Tracks

December 31, 1967 at GMT-8

Billie, Ella, Lena, Sarah

12 Tracks

December 31, 1953 at GMT-8

Lullabies of Birdland

11 Tracks

September 28, 2017 at PDT

Someone to Watch Over Me

This intriguing release places Ella Fitzgerald’s vocal tracks for Decca and Verve, spanning 1950 to 1961, on top of new symphonic arrangements done mainly by Jorge Calandrelli. Heightening the past-meets-future aspect is the appearance of Gregory Porter alongside Fitzgerald on the opening track. Two songs from the First Lady’s famed duet with Louis Armstrong also make the cut, so another iconic voice (and trumpet) rings out amid sweeping strings, winds, brass, and orchestral percussion. The warm ensemble colors have a disarming allure.

12 Tracks

October 1, 2020 at PDT

Ella: The Lost Berlin Tapes (Live)

17 Tracks

December 31, 1955 at GMT-8

Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers & Hart Songbook

35 Tracks

September 23, 1996 at PDT

Best of the Songbooks: The Collection

48 Tracks

February 24, 1957 at GMT-8

Ella and Louis Again

Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald’s initial meeting in the studio, 1956’s Ella and Louis, was so successful that producer Norman Granz reassembled the cast nearly a year later. Also featuring all standards, Ella and Louis Again again features pianist Oscar Peterson’s trio with bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Herb Ellis. One difference is that Louie Bellson ably replaces Buddy Rich behind the drum kit. Another is that Armstrong sings four songs without Fitzgerald and she three without him, serving as a de facto palate cleanser. On the standout interpretation of “Stompin’ at the Savoy,” a trademark Fitzgerald scat is followed by a hot Armstrong trumpet solo and then his scatting before she rejoins. “I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket” brilliantly showcases every single musician, while “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” perfectly encapsulates the talent, affection, and respect overflowing in the studio that day.

19 Tracks

January 27, 2003 at PST

Ella For Lovers

16 Tracks

November 30, 2017 at PST

Ella at Zardi's (Live, 1956)

On a long-lost live album, the First Lady of Song is radiant.

21 Tracks

December 31, 1962 at GMT-8

Ella and Basie!

18 Tracks

May 31, 1960 at GMT-7

Let No Man Write My Epitaph (Soundtrack from the Motion Picture)

13 Tracks

November 30, 1957 at GMT-8

Ella Fitzgerald Sings: The Duke Ellington Songbook (Expanded Edition)

51 Tracks

March 31, 1961 at GMT-8

Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Harold Arlen Songbook (Expanded Edition)

28 Tracks