Some Recognizable Songs, Still The Jerome Kern Songbook Is Not Ella Fitzgerald's Best.

The Good: Decent vocals, Some great lyrics
The Bad: Musically homogenous, Short, Overall blandness.
The Basics: Simple and somewhat uninspired, The Jerome Kern Songbook closes my exploration of the performances of Ella Fitzgerald on something of a downbeat.


As I conclude my monthlong study of the music of Ella Fitzgerald, I find myself feeling like I am at an anticlimax. My February/March Artist Of The Month, Ella Fitzgerald, was not technically an artist, but rather was a performer. Still, I spent the month enjoying her works and looking forward to each new album I experienced. In the process, I found a perfect compilation and several fine albums that I enjoyed quite a bit. My sense of anticlimax, then, comes from ending the reviews with an album that simply did not light up my sky.

The Jerome Kern Songbook has Ella Fitzgerald performing several recognizable songs like "A Fine Romance" and one of my personal favorites, "The Way You Look Tonight." In fact, the latter song is one of my favorite "standards." Performed at the end of my favorite television show of all time, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, by James Darren, who had a recurring role on the show, the song has a strong emotional resonance with me. But when Ella Fitzgerald performed the song on this album it left me feeling largely indifferent. Indeed, my sense after listening to The Jerome Kern Songbook a dozen times now is a state of underwhelming, or rather an underwhelmed state. My experiences with Ella Fitzgerald's works most of this month have generally been a study in consistency with sweeping variations in arrangement. Compilations of Ella Fitzgerald's works tend to be either diverse and wonderful or illustrating a mastery in one style or short and repetitive with very little in between. Unlike any of her other albums that come to mind, The Jerome Kern Songbook features an underutilized, unimpressive incarnation of Fitzgerald's vocalizations that leave the listener indifferent.

With only twelve tracks occupying 42:37 minutes on the compact disc, the first strike against The Jerome Kern Songbook is that it does not utilize anywhere near the full capacity of the compact disc. This is not from lack of material; Jerome Ken published 650 songs according to the liner notes and Fitzgerald recorded more than just these twelve in the course of her lifetime. Fitzgerald appears on each song as the lead vocalist, but just as with every other Ella Fitzgerald recording, she does not write any of the songs, nor play any of the instruments. Norman Granz, her long-time producer, produced the songs.

Fitzgerald is accompanied on this album by Nelson Riddle and his orchestra. This orchestra is primarily a piano and string-driven orchestra with brass accenting the interludes on songs like "You Couldn't Be Cuter." The songs tend to generally be slower, with the strings and piano dominating as they do on "A Fine Romance" and "The Way You Look Tonight." The tempo is picked up for songs like "She Didn't Say Yes," but that song, like many of the songs on the album, tend to use primarily the piano and strings with the strings acting as percussion, which is not uncommon in some classical jazz.

The best way to describe the music on The Jerome Kern Songbook would be "showtunes." All of the songs were actually associated with shows of varying success from "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" coming from the successful "Showboat" to the Broadway flop "Very Warm For May" which yielded "All The Things You Are." There is even a song Kern wrote for an Abbot And Costello film: "Remind Me." While the songs are never too referential that one feels like they are missing something by not knowing the show or context the song was originally performed in, all of the songs have a pretty mellow, musical theater quality to them. One could picture a high school production managing many of the songs on this album.

And therein lies the biggest problem I might conceive with an Ella Fitzgerald album. On The Jerome Kern Songbook, she is fairly restrained, presenting vocals that are less passionate and more mundane than most listeners would likely ever guess. While Fitzgerald is a master vocalist who has the ability to soar from bass to soprano or effortlessly plunge from the highest notes to a soulful depth within a note, little of those vocal abilities unique to (or pioneered by) Fitzgerald are presented on this album. One might argue that that makes some sense; if these songs were from musicals or other productions, no one else could be expected to make such leaps. The problem, then, is that Fitzgerald is not an ideal fit for these compositions. Having heard Fitzgerald's amazing capacity on other albums, it is entirely underwhelming to hear how little of her lung capacity she is required to use on her rendition of "The Way You Look Tonight."

The result is a restrained sounding Ella Fitzgerald and one has to wonder, what is the point of having such wings, if you're not allowed to fly? I have no good answer to that and I am left wondering what drew Fitzgerald to the compositions of Jerome Kern or how no one thought to recompose them for Fitzgerald so they utilize her talents and abilities.

Of course, the obvious answer would have to be Fitzgerald might have simply loved the lyrics of Jerome Kern. There is a lot to recommend Kern's lyrics. The raw emotionalism of Kern is evident on "The Way You Look Tonight" and I found myself quite impressed with "All The Things You Are." On that song, she manages to sound soulful and articulate even if she is a bit restrained while singing "You are the angel glow that lights a star, / The dearest things I know are what you are. / Some day my happy arms will hold you, / And some day I'll know that moment divine, / When all the things you are, are mine" ("All The Things You Are"). Fitzgerald does not make the song her own, but she gives a good turn of it.

Outside not challenging Fitzgerald's range or endurance, The Jerome Kern Songbook seems to utilize little in the way of diction to challenge Fitzgerald as well. Some of my earliest experiences with the music of Ella Fitzgerald had her performing jazz scats and singing complex lines very quickly. So, despite what the liner notes say, it is no surprise to the listener that Fitzgerald may easily manage such lines as "And all this while, you've really been tempting me / Maybe you can tell me what we ought to do / Now that you've got me going, what you gonna do? / Is it up to me? Is it up to you? / What kind of game is this we've begun? / Was it done, just for fun" ("Let's Begin")? The singsong rhymes are well beneath Fitzgerald and this performance is not at all surprising or even terribly impressive.

At least the producers of this album sought to use Fitzgerald for her musical storytelling ability as they do on "She Didn't Say Yes." Fitzgerald is articulate and had a captivating voice for telling musical storysongs and when she narrates "They very soon stood beside his chateau / They lingered like two poor waifs outside / For well she knew `twas only safe outside / In there it was warm, out there it was cold / The sleet and the storm said, 'Better be bold' / She murmured, 'I'm not afraid of ice, / I only wish that I was made of ice'" ("She Didn't Say Yes") she makes it musical, but she sings it in a way that each and every word may be perfectly understood.

Still, it is not enough to save this mediocre album. Those looking for great vocal jazz will be underwhelmed by this album and surprised that Ella Fitzgerald could leave them feeling unimpressed. As one who was so surprised, it's not a great feeling.

The best track is "All The Things You Are," the low point is the unmemorable "I'm Old Fashioned."

For other works by Ella Fitzgerald, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Ella And Louis
Ella At Duke's Place
Ella Fitzgerald With The Tommy Flanagan Trio
The Intimate Ella
Shine
Ella And Louis Again
That Old Black Magic
Starlit Hour
Love And Kisses
Day Dream: Best Of The Duke Ellington Songbook
Oh, Lady, Be Good! The Best Of The Gershwin Songbook
The Best Of The Songbooks
Pure Ella
Flying Home
Celebrated

4.5/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the music reviews I have written!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Ella Fitzgerald Might Be Celebrated, But This Is Not A Perfect Mix.

The Good: Great vocals, Some decent songs that illustrate Ella Fitzgerald's capacity well.
The Bad: A few seriously dated tracks, Short.
The Basics: Ella Fitzgerald Celebrated is a good mix of Ella Fitzgerald vocals within the swing/big band jazz tradition that have some great and frighteningly dated songs!


Despite my usual complaint about Ella Fitzgerald albums that tend to have a musically monotonous sound, there is something to be said about albums that capture all of one style or era of jazz in Fitzgerald's performances. There is some irony, then, to my finding Ella Fitzgerald Celebrated after I did not like some of the specific recordings used on Pure Ella. In the case of Celebrated, I discovered a collection that had some great versions of classic recordings like "A-Tisket A-Tasket" and "Shine." However, the album also includes some terribly dated songs that are neither the best vocal examples of Ella Fitzgerald's works nor the most compelling examples of anything other than dated notions of other peoples of the world ("Sing Song Swing").

In general, though, Celebrated is a collection of big band swing jazz style songs performed by Ella Fitzgerald and they are a decent collection of that style of jazz sensibility. Those who like that sound will find much to enjoy on Celebrated, despite the fact that some of the instrumental interludes - which have nothing to do with the talents or genius of Ella Fitzgerald - are excessive. For example, "I'll Chase The Blues Away" has a long coda after Fitzgerald's singing ends and on the under-three minute song "T'Ain't What You Do," Fitzgerald does not begin singing for over a full minute! This, combined with the repetitive nature of the lyrics, leaves the listener with the impression the song does not have enough to actually justify is existence; it is barely saying anything and its lack of duration supports that notion.

With sixteen songs taking up 46:07, Celebrated is hardly the most robust use of the compact disc medium. As always, Ella Fitzgerald performs works written by others, so while she has amazing vocals, she is singing lyrics written by professional writers. Furthermore, she does not play any instruments, nor was she involved in the production end of any of the tracks (as far as engineering, etc. goes). Magnum Music, which produced this album, culled the sixteen songs from several sources and as a result, various recording companies had their hand in the production of the individual tracks. It is somewhat surprising, then, that the songs have such a unified sound. That said, the quality of some of the recordings is less-than-pristine, many of which must have been remastered from mono to stereo performances. Still, most have a swing jazz sound to them and if one is truly celebrating Ella Fitzgerald, to limit the recording to only that sound is not doing justice to her!

That said, Ella Fitzgerald Celebrated has a wonderful collection of tracks featuring the vocals of Ella Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald, best known for amazing vocals that seem to effortlessly span three octaves of tones, illustrates that incredible talent by going from bass to soprano on songs like "A-Tisket A-Tasket," "Shine" and "Sugar Blues." And when she stays safely within one tonal range, she is still able to impress listeners, as she does with the speed of her delivery on "Chew Chew Chew." It is hard to argue the status of Ella Fitzgerald as legendary performer with vocals like those that she presents on "Crying My Heart Out For You."

It is arguable that Ella Fitzgerald can make anything sound good, but on Celebrated, she certainly makes a powerful argument for that idea! For example, Fitzgerald becomes the consummate musical storyteller on songs like "Shine," reminding listeners of the emphasis on "musical" in such labels when she sings "Just because I always wear a smile, / Likes to dress up in the latest style. / Just because I'm glad I'm livin', / Takes trouble smilin', never whine. / Just because my color's shady, / slightly different maybe that's why they call me shine." Fitzgerald lays out an empathetic musical protagonist with her articulate vocals that make the listener care about the predicament of her protagonist. Even with the trumpets and pianos accompanying her, Fitzgerald's voice resonates above all else and presents the story clearly and in an intriguing fashion.

Unfortunately, Celebrated includes some songs that have Fitzgerald singing singsong rhymes that - even being part of an early jazz tradition - are problematic for their predictability and obviousness. Fitzgerald has some difficulty creating credible coherency out of lines like "He's not much for looks / And no hero out of books, / Is my man. / Two or three girls has he / That he likes as well as me, / But I love him" ("My Man") arguably because the rhymes are so simple as to be little more than nursery rhyme beats. Fitzgerald deserves a repertoire that represents emotional depth as well as vocal range and Celebrated, unfortunately, does not always portray that.

As well, this album has some seriously dated songs on it that are problematic to listen to now. "My Heart Belongs To Daddy" has a musical protagonist whose lover is referred to as "daddy" and while that is a cultural concept that has held even into today's rap culture, there is something disturbing about mixing nicknames for lovers with family. In the interest of full disclosure, I also find it bothersome when spouses refer to their partner as "mom" or "dad" for the benefit of the children. But the way Fitzgerald sings about loving "Daddy" in that song is just tinged with an undercurrent of gross.

But none of the songs are as problematic as "Sing Song Swing" which is dated in its most kind interpretation, flat-out racist in the worst evaluation of it. Indeed, there is something offensive about Fitzgerald taking on a mock-Chinese accent and singing "With a ting-a-ling on the ding dong ding / Makee plenty sing song swing / Choppity chop chop, chop chopsticks / Choppity chop chop, chop till six / Choppity chop chop, chops the thing /When Charlie Chingee make his sing song swing" ("Sing Song Swing"). The only thing that saves this song from something more harsh in terms of evaluating it - in addition to the idea that it was likely performed over fifty years ago - is that randomly strung together words like "foo young foo" and "makee doodle-do" make the song much more nonsensical than serious. Still, it is pretty offensive by today's standards and given that Celebrated was compilated and released relatively recently its inclusion is problematic.

This is not to say that songs like "Sing Song Swing" ought not to be preserved, but celebrating it as opposed to keeping it more in a context of a historical document is bothersome. Just like there is a difference between preserving photographs or films of old minstrel shows might have some historical value, it would be something else entirely to play those videos or show those pictures as part of a 2009 entertainment portfolio.

Still, this is not enough to keep one from Celebrated, though the musical monotony of the trumpet and brass-driven tracks on the album are likely to make one tire of it quicker than some of Fitzgerald's other compilations. Despite its faults, it is an overall decent mix and one worth a listen by those looking to hear a diverse and great array of Fitzgerald's works. But for the buy . . . that's a much tougher sell.

The best track is "A-Tisket A-Tasket," the low point is "Sing Song Swing."

For other works by Ella Fitzgerald, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Ella And Louis
Ella At Duke's Place
Ella Fitzgerald With The Tommy Flanagan Trio
The Intimate Ella
Shine
Ella And Louis Again
That Old Black Magic
Starlit Hour
Love And Kisses
Day Dream: Best Of The Duke Ellington Songbook
Oh, Lady, Be Good! The Best Of The Gershwin Songbook
The Best Of The Songbooks
Pure Ella
Flying Home

6.5/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Great Sampler Of Songbooks, Yes, But The Best Of The Songbooks? Maybe. Ella Fitzgerald Still Succeeds!

The Good: Great voice, Decent length, Good diversity of song styles.
The Bad: Not the greatest rendition of some of the songs presented.
The Basics: Quite close to perfect, still eminently worthwhile The Best Of The Songbooks provides listeners with a series varied Ella Fitzgerald performances from some of the best composers of her day!


I am uncertain if the word "ironic" is the one I truly want, but it does certainly seem odd that I would reach my review of the Ella Fitzgerald album The Best Of The Songbooks before I had taken in the final Fitzgerald album on my desk, which is Ella Fitzgerald singing the Jerome Kern songbook. As it turns out, in my month-long immersion into the works of Ella Fitzgerald, I only ended up finding two compilations of Fitzgerald singing the works uniquely of one composer: Day Dream: Best Of The Duke Ellington Songbook and Oh, Lady, Be Good! Best Of The Gershwin Songbook. So, even without hearing the library of Jerome Kern songs Fitzgerald performs, I've listened a dozen times to The Best Of The Songbooks and it is both enjoyable and substantial.

For those who are unfamiliar with the works of Ella Fitzgerald, the concept is worth explaining. Ella Fitzgerald, while a great talent, was only a performer. She did not write, produce or compose her own work. Instead, she sang the works of artists who wrote standards for jazz singers to perform. The collections of those composers, known as songbooks, were then performed by Fitzgerald (and others, like Frank Sinatra) and she recorded a series of albums that were later made into a sixteen compact disc set. Those albums, the "Songbook" Collection, represent Fitzgerald's devoted attempts to present the works of Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Ellington, Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Kern and Johnny Mercer. This compilation, then, is intended to be a digest of the best performances of the best songs she performed out of those two hundred plus songs in her "Songbook" recordings. And this is a great, but not perfect, compilation of some amazing songs performed by Fitzgerald.

With sixteen songs, clocking out at 62:35, The Best Of The Songbooks, as revealed in the liner notes is organized as an ideal Ella Fitzgerald concert from her songbook collection. The intent, then, according to Geoffrey Mark Fidelman - who organized the album, picked the songs on it and wrote the liner notes - is to provide something of a songbook concert that never was. It's an ambitious and wonderful concept.

The strength of The Best Of The Songbooks comes in the diversity of tracks and the strengths and dignity of the vocals of Ella Fitzgerald herself. The track diversity - as one who has listened to a lot of Ella Fitzgerald of late - is exceptionally important and the album flows rather well from track to track. Starting out with a swing jazz track that is heavy in the brass section, "Something's Gotta Give," The Best Of The Songbooks includes virtually every style of jazz Fitzgerald performs, up to a climax with her jazz scatting on "Cotton Tail." She has stylish toe-tapping songs ("Love For Sale"), slow, sad ballads ("Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye") and virtually everything in between on this album.

Often, the problem with Fitzgerald's compilations is they include only one sound. Fitzgerald performs either with a giant swing band (lots of brass), a jazz orchestra (more strings) or intimately with only a piano. On The Best Of The Songbooks, though, there is an ideal mix of instrumental accompaniment. Thus, Fitzgerald performs before Ellington's orchestra and Nelson Riddle's, which sound distinctly different in their instrumental composition and with a much more intimate sound on "Bewitched, Bothered, And Bewildered." On that song, she is accompanied by a quartet with only piano, guitar, bass and drums. The result is an album that keeps the ear of the listener attentive because one does not know just what to expect from the next track, even after listening to the album over and over again.

Overall, though, the album might be perfect for those who feel intimidated by jazz and/or swing music. The Best Of The Songbooks has a vibe more in line with what one might expect from showtunes as opposed to jazz. For sure, there is an intimate relationship between vocal jazz performances and showtunes, but many people might not make that connection until they hear Fitzgerald performing the Gershwin tune "'S Wonderful." There is a disarming quality to the arrangement and presentation of the music on this album that makes it very accessible to those who were raised on modern popular music.

That said, it is hard to imagine anyone being intimidated by the sound of Ella Fitzgerald's presentations. Songs like "Hooray For Love" are instantly disarming and have a very "pop" sound to it which is likely to impress new listeners with how articulate Fitzgerald may be while singing quickly. She is expressive and articulate; on "Hooray For Love," she actually sounds like she is having a good time with performing, making the music come alive for the listener. That music recorded over half a century ago may sound vibrant, current and alive now is impressive.

She continues to illustrate her range by following that song up with the contemplative "Why Was I Born?" On that song, she is able to utilize the full range of her vocal ability traversing all three-octaves within her range effortlessly. The song is slow and forces her to hold notes for long periods of time as opposed to quickly rattling off words in succession. The result is a track that emotes so much more than it tells, making for a vital difference between it and the song that preceded it. But those two represent the extremes of Fitzgerald's style and vocal abilities, with the rest of the album falling in between those two types.

In fact, the only thing truly frustrating about listening to The Best Of The Songbooks is that there are some better recordings than the ones that are presented on this album. So, for example, having heard it performed as a duet, when Fitzgerald performs "They Can't Take That Away From Me" I find myself missing the accompaniment by Louis Armstrong. Armstrong and Fitzgerald performed that song beautifully on some of their duet albums and while this is a more pure Fitzgerald experience, it is not the absolute best recording of the song she ever performed on.

Still, the songs Fitzgerald performs are generally wonderful in that they have something to say. Fitzgerald takes simple poetics like "Everytime we say goodbye, I die a little, / Everytime we say goodbye, I wonder why a little, / Why the Gods above me, who must be in the know. / Think so little of me, they allow you to go. / When you're near, there's such an air of spring about it, / I can hear a lark somewhere, begin to sing about it . . ." ("Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye") and makes them resonate with truly genuine emotion. When she sings that song, she presents a wrenching version of the lines that it is hard not to miss one who is no longer with them.

One of the other enjoyable things about The Best Of The Songbooks is that it reminds listeners how controversial jazz could be, especially for the time. Consider that in 1956 Ella Fitzgerald was singing the lines "I've sinned a lot, I'm mean a lot / But I'm like sweet seventeen a lot . . . I'll sing to him, each spring to him / And worship the trousers that cling to him / Bewitched, bothered and bewildered - am I / When he talks, he is seeking / Words to get off his chest / Horizontally speaking, he's at his very best / Vexed again, perplexed again / Thank God, I can be oversexed again . . ." ("Bewitched, Bothered, And Bewildered"). Jazz was an adult form of music and it is actually refreshing to hear lines that treat love as something that is complex. The songs selected for this album do that quite well and say a lot about the culture within the U.S. culture that was jazz culture!

The other nice thing about The Best Of The Songbooks is how it may expand the musical education of its listeners. Despite having several songs that I was familiar with, there were songs like "Midnight Sun" which I had never heard of. From Johnny Mercer and Francis Burke came some beautiful poetics and Fitzgerald makes them come alive. Indeed, it is hard to imagine anyone else singing "I can't explain the silver rain that found me--or was that a moonlit veil? / The music of the universe around me, or was that a nightingale? / And then your arms miraculously found me,suddenly the sky turned pale, / I could see the Midnight Sun. " ("Midnight Sun") better after hearing Fitzgerald sing it!

The Best Of The Songbooks is close to perfect, but not quite there, a near miss for the Ella Fitzgerald collector, but certainly a strong enough concept for all audiences to buy and enjoy. For a diverse Ella Fitzgerald experience, there are few albums that are going to top this one!

The best track is "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" and the low point is the less memorable "Miss Otis Regrets."

For other works by Ella Fitzgerald, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Ella And Louis
Ella At Duke's Place
Ella Fitzgerald With The Tommy Flanagan Trio
The Intimate Ella
Shine
Ella And Louis Again
That Old Black Magic
Starlit Hour
Love And Kisses
Day Dream: Best Of The Duke Ellington Songbook
Oh, Lady, Be Good! The Best Of The Gershwin Songbook
Pure Ella
Flying Home

9/10

For other music reviews, please visit my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing of all of my music reviews!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Intimate Ella Is Largely “The Indistinct Ella” On This Disappointing C.D.

The Good: Voice, A few lyrics
The Bad: SHORT, Musically and vocally monotonous
The Basics: While Ella Fitzgerald might be a master of tone and note control, The Intimate Ella presents only that, making for an unfortunate, monolithic listening experience.


As February races toward a close and I consider my Artist Of The Month, Ella Fitzgerald, I find myself overcome with mixed feelings. I know that whenever I hear Fitzgerald on PBS, I will actually have some appreciation for her talents. Moreover, I know I made some good recommendations on her recordings because I have listened to so many of her performances the past few weeks I have a pretty strong concept of which recordings were some of her best and which were just cheap compilations.

Unfortunately, The Intimate Ella is such a slow, dull musical outing that it falls closer to the latter than the former. However, this is not a compilation album; this is the c.d. version of the near-impossible to find soundtrack "Let No Man Write My Epitaph" (according to the liner notes). But given the preponderance of great collections out on the market and the diversity of Fitzgerald albums that exists, The Intimate Ella is just too monotonous and boring to recommend. Yes, this is the narcoleptic Ella and between being track after track the same, soft piano tracks without any variety, the album is much more likely to put the listener to sleep than engage them (it nearly killed my mother and I on a recent trip when I was driving at night!). And while this has some predictably amazing vocals by Ella Fitzgerald, the album is dull and sleepy and there are actually moments Fitzgerald sounds bored with it herself.

With only thirteen songs utilizing 42:32 minutes of space, The Intimate Ella is hardly a powerhouse using the capacity of the compact disc medium. Instead, this is a collection of songs that lack scope and the c.d. lacks it as well, making it even more tiresome upon replaying. As always, Ella Fitzgerald appears as the vocalist on the album, performing songs that were written by others. She is accompanied on this album by a lone pianist and she did not play her own piano, despite the way the piano and her voice play off one another perfectly. Her long-time producer, Norman Granz, produced the album, so Fitzgerald has very little creative control over what appears on this recording.

What the album does have more than many of Fitzgerald's albums is a wide array of writers. As a soundtrack, this album was packed with songs by talented writers and very few appear as writers for more than one track. The problem, though, is that they are all writing for the same gestalt and the result is that Fitzgerald is not given a great deal to work with to show off her talents. Moreover, the whole "one woman in the spotlight before a lone piano" sound wears out quickly and this becomes a collection of songs that sound more tired than audacious, presented in a tiring form.

For The Intimate Ella the uniformity of the tracks is a severe liability. This is a melancholy album and while one might consider something like this for accompanying a candlelit dinner, this music is more likely to put the diners in a haze and put them to sleep rather than get them feeling sensual.

This I blame those constructing the album for. Ella Fitzgerald has an amazing voice and on The Intimate Ella, she is presented as a professional, consistent soprano. In fact, it is only on the final track, "Reach For Tomorrow" that Fitzgerald exhibits real range. She goes low, she ends high, but she goes through her entire three-octave range on the song, making it instantly worthwhile. While the album begins with her singing lower on "Black Coffee," she stays low and sultry through most of it. The other songs, she is simply high and perfect-pitched. But because all of the songs are slow and melodic, this becomes quite boring to listen to, even for lovers of vocal jazz.

One aspect of Fitzgerald's vocals I have not addressed before that is worth noting - because it is displayed in a superlative fashion on The Intimate Ella - is Fitzgerald's vocal control. She is amazing at holding notes and on every song on this album, he holds notes with perfect pitch that most performers cannot hold even for a moment. The thing is, Fitzgerald is melodic and can string together long phrases where she is drawing out notes in a harmonic and hypnotic way and this album displays that incredible talent on every track.

This, unfortunately, is one of the drawbacks of the album as well. While the sound of songs like "Angel Eyes" is instantly impressive where Fitzgerald presents long, held notes, when the album quickly becomes an album where every song on it is doing only that, the listener tunes out; it becomes an unfortunate white noise. There are no quick bits on the album, not even one journey up or down the scales and the contemplative, slow quality to it makes it sound more mundane - especially upon repetition of the album - than extraordinary.

As well, because all of the notes are high and slow, some of the lyrics are rendered less articulate or clear than the ought to be. It took three listens before I actually heard the title line "I Cried For You" in that song because of how the song was presented! There are few songs on this album where the the lines are clear and Fitzgerald actually enunciates. Instead, most of the album flows together as an indistinct auditory sludge that sounds wonderful, but means little.

This is unfortunate, because some of the poetry is actually quite worthwhile, if not extraordinary! Having heard a few renditions of many of the songs, I have certainly heard more articulate versions of "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby," but I've not heard any that have such raw soul as on The Intimate Ella. I can only imagine how much more powerful the song would actually be if one could understand her when she sang "I can't give you anything but love, baby. / That's the only thing I've plenty of, baby. / Dream a while. Scheme a while. / We're sure to find, / Happiness, and I guess / All those things you've always pined for" ("I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby"). I fail to understand why anyone would want such articulate lines obscured.

Of course, on this album that vocalization sometimes works perfectly to create the intended mood. The lines "When you're sad / It makes me feel the same as you... / Come to me my melancholy baby / Cuddle up and don't be blue / All your fears are foolish fancy, maybe / You know, dear, that I'm in love with you . . ." ("My Melancholy Baby") truly reach their full expressiveness with her slow, sad presentation of them. Fitzgerald might be presenting the words of artists who write for her, but she does it quite well for most of the album. Again, one wonders why those making the soundtrack wanted her to drag the lines out in such a way that they are often almost indecipherable.

And some of the lyrics are not particularly extraordinary. "September Song" is fairly repetitive and its uncomplicated rhymes of "Oh, it's a long, long time from May to December /
But the days grow short when you reach September / When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame / One hasn't got time for the waiting game / Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few / September, November / And these few precious days I'll spend with you / These precious days I'll spend with you" make the listener tire from it fairly quickly.

As a result, The Intimate Ella comes across as one of her less sophisticated albums, despite possessing the trademark voice and the clear ability that makes her a master at her craft.

The best track is "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby," the rest of the album pretty much flows indistinctly together.

For other works by Ella Fitzgerald, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Ella And Louis
Ella At Duke's Place
Ella Fitzgerald With The Tommy Flanagan Trio
Shine
Ella And Louis Again
That Old Black Magic
Starlit Hour
Love And Kisses
Day Dream: Best Of The Duke Ellington Songbook
Oh, Lady, Be Good! The Best Of The Gershwin Songbook
Pure Ella
Flying Home

3.5/10

For other music reviews, please be sure to check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing of all of my music reviews!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Another Mediocre Ella Fitzgerald Compilation, Flying Home At Least Offers Some Decent Tracks.

The Good: Ella Fitzgerald's amazing voice, Good swing jazz sound overall
The Bad: Compiled from other (some better) recordings, SHORT
The Basics: While Ella Fitzgerald compilations are fairly common, there are few truly worthwhile ones. Flying Home is one worth picking up, though.


There is something amusing to me as someone who began February as a complete novice to the works of Ella Fitzgerald to now be able to recognize some of the recordings from which some of the compilations pull their recordings of her works. The thing is, what is most available these days are compilation recordings of Ella Fitzgerald's works and while there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of recordings to pull from, it seems those who compile the works of Ella Fitzgerald for compact discs seem to pull from about the same fifty songs and too few of the compilations actually make decent use of the amount of space a compact disc actually has.

That said, Flying Home is a pretty weak "recommend" on my part; the songs on it are good, but the capacity for more is there. Moreover, the more I listen to the album, the more I hear how many tracks were simply lifted from Ella And Louis, an album that paired Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong to make something of a superalbum. So, for example, "Moonlight In Vermont" on this compilation is simply taken from that album and the nice thing is that it features Armstrong on his trumpet and his vocals come in to provide Ella Fitzgerald with someone to sing to and that works especially well for that song, which is meant to be a duet from the lyrics.

For those looking for a minimal compilation that has a generally decent mix of songs released on other albums, Flying Home fits the bill pretty well. It has twelve songs which take up only 43:30 on the disc, but they are presented with clear remastered sound that comes out beautifully. Of course, Ella Fitzgerald merely performs vocally on Flying Home. She was a jazz vocal performer who had an amazing voice, but did little on the creative end of her own music. As a result, Fitzgerald did not write, compose or produce any of the songs on this album. She also does not play any instruments on Flying Home, she simply provides her amazing voice.

And Ella Fitzgerald has an amazing voice and Flying Home has a mix of songs that help to illustrate that fairly well. This album has some traditional jazz scatting of Fitzgerald’s on tracks like "Air Mail Special" and Flying Home which both illustrate an impressive vocal range and mastery of the scales. Fitzgerald's jazz scatting is actually a wonderful example of the performer's originality and her creative ability. While I might be dismayed that she did not have much creative control over most of her works, it is hard to deny that she does create when she explores with her voice through magical ascensions and descending scales in her quick "boop" and "bops" of jazz scatting.

When not creating aural utterances that are enchanting in their speed and tonal quality, Ella Fitzgerald is largely able to articulate beautifully, as she does through the fast parts of "How High The Moon." She sings deep and growling on "Basin Street Blues" and ascends the full three octaves of her range on the more melodic and ethereal "Angel Eyes." Those who compiled this album seemed to have a wonderful concept of how to mix Fitzgerald's lower moments and her higher ones.

Unfortunately, many of the songs are somewhat lyrically limited, which makes them harder to take seriously over multiple listens. It does not matter how well Ella Fitzgerald sings "A Foggy Day," for example, when its lines include "A foggy day, in London town / Had me low, had me down / I viewed the morning, with much alarm / British museum, had lost its charm / How long I wondered, / Could this thing last / But the age of miracles, hadn't past / For suddenly, I saw you there / And through foggy london town, / The sun was shining everywhere." I've tended to go lightly on some of the lyrics Fitzgerald sings because predictable rhyme schemes were not always so; someone had to use them first. Still, the singsong rhythm to this song is often troubling, especially when one listens to it over and over again.

Moreover, one has to assume that Fitzgerald is performing with a theatrical sense of irony on "Lullaby Of Birdland." Far from a lullaby, she presents it as an upbeat swing jazz song that has a toe-tapping rhythm. Unfortunately, this is distracting as she sings "And there's a weepy old willow / He really knows how to cry, / That's how I'd cry in my pillow / If you should tell me farewell and goodbye / Lullaby of birdland whisper low / Kiss me sweet, and we'll go / Flying high in birdland, high in the sky up above / All because were in love" ("Lullaby Of Birdland"). Instead of being sweet, soulful and sad as the lyrics connote, the song is strangely upbeat in a disconcerting and incongruent way.

One of the better songs, "Moonlight In Vermont" is a poetic duet presented between her and Louis Armstrong. The song resonates well when she sings "Telegraph cables, they sing down the highway / And travel each bend in the road" and he responds "People who meet, in this romantic setting / Are so hypnotized by the lovely. . ." ("Moonlight In Vermont"). In that case, even the slightly simplistic lyrics are able to be written off due to the amazing vocals. Fitzgerald dominates the upper registers and Armstrong enters with his smooth voice entering the lower tenor range to harmonize with her. It is quite extraordinary.

But largely, this is a fair, not indispensible, compilation for those who are enthusiastic about the works of Ella Fitzgerald. There is much to enjoy and if you find it when you need an Ella Fitzgerald fix, this is a good way to go. But for a permanent library of Ella Fitzgerald's works, this would be a tough sell, whatwith so many other great compilations out there.

The best track is "Air Mail Special" with its amazing jazz scatting, the low point is the murky and repetitive "April In Paris."

For other works by Ella Fitzgerald, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Ella And Louis
Ella At Duke's Place
Ella Fitzgerald With The Tommy Flanagan Trio
Shine
Ella And Louis Again
That Old Black Magic
Starlit Hour
Love And Kisses
Day Dream: Best Of The Duke Ellington Songbook
Oh, Lady, Be Good! The Best Of The Gershwin Songbook
Pure Ella

5.5/10

For other music reviews, please be sure to check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing of all my music reviews!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Ella And Louis Again Recaptures Much (Not All) Of The Greatness Of Their Earlier Release!

The Good: Good vocals, Interesting instrumentals (when Armstrong performs), Some good lyrics
The Bad: Didn't they do this already?
The Basics: Good, but not exceptional, Ella & Louis Again reminds listeners of how great their first duet album was more than give us anything truly new.


Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong represent two definitively American talents and the whole argument for organization to the galaxy by some supreme force might well be made by observing that two such amazing performers existed in the same time, space and medium in such a way that they were generally noncompetitive. That they combined their performing talents for the incredibly successful Ella And Louis (reviewed here!) was astonishing. So, when they returned to the studio and recorded Ella And Louis Again it was like a second strike of lightning.

The thing is, to carry the metaphor, they say that nothing hurts quite like getting struck by lightning the first time. Ella And Louis Again has a similar feel; it is profound, but it is the new thing we are already familiar with. The result is that the impact of the two genius performers harmonizing is dulled and there is less of the sense of the extraordinary pervading the recording as one listens to it over and over again. Still, it is worthwhile.

With only a dozen songs, the duo packs in 54:58 worth of music, making it a generally good use of the compact disc medium (though I was left wanting more for the money). Unlike their prior outing, Armstrong does not contribute any of his own music. As a result, Armstrong and Fitzgerald are simply vocal and instrumental performers of works written by other people exclusively on Ella And Louis Again. They sing songs written by Benny Goodman, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin and George and Ira Gershwin. Fitzgerald performs the lead vocals and Armstrong accompanies her and also plays his trumpet on some of the songs. Neither is involved in the production end of the album.

On Ella And Louis Again, Fitzgerald does no jazz scatting and she stays mostly in her lower or middle ranges of her vocals. On songs like "I'm Putting All My Eggs In One Basket," Fitzgerald starts low, slowly journeys into the soprano octaves, but she does not soar as high as she does on many songs on other albums. Instead, she goes high, but avoids the very highest registers which she is able to do.

The result is that Fitzgerald's harmonizing with Armstrong sounds on this album a lot more safe and (for lack of a better term) pedestrian, as if the two performers are working to meet in the middle as opposed to share the best of their extremes. Armstrong, for his part, sounds virtually identical to how he did on Ella And Louis. His gravelly voice has not altered in tone, pitch or articulation. When he and Fitzgerald perform "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off," it is exactly as one might imagine it given his vocals on the prior duet album.

In fact, much of the album is exactly what one might anticipate in a collection of duets from the great jazz performers. There is nothing shocking or audacious on this album that makes the listener sit up and say "WOW, I didn't think they could do that!" Instead, songs like "Learnin' The Blues" illustrate exactly how each artist works and how they fit well together. Instead of harmonizing, on the bulk of the songs, Fitzgerald sings, Armstrong sings and they continue to pass it back and forth. There are very few moments the artists actually sing together. As a result, there is nothing quite like the coda to "They Can't Take That Away From Me" from Ella And Louis on this album that has the two of them jamming together as one fluid, musical entity.

That said, this is not a bad thing at all. The back and forth on the classic song "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off" is wonderful. It brings out a playful quality in Armstrong that none of the other tracks have. Even though it is more subdued - and shorter - than some of the versions of the same song that I've heard Fitzgerald perform, Fitzgerald sounds like she is having fun on it and it resonates in a different way than when she performs it solo. This, for those listening to a large amount of Ella Fitzgerald music, is a wonderful thing.

As for the sound of Ella And Louis Again, this album is very mellow. All of the tracks are quiet, piano-driven jazz tracks that sound like the two are sharing a small stage in a nightclub. The accompanists play piano, guitar, bass and drums and the drums are all subdued and keep a slow, contemplative beat. Unlike many of Fitzgerald's albums, this is not swing jazz or a big band sound. It is a much more intimate sound and it works beautifully for both performers!

The other thing that generally works are the lyrics. Fitzgerald and Armstrong might not have had their hands in writing but they - and producer Norman Granz - picked songs that work quite well for both of them. In fact, I am fairly sure I did not enjoy the song "I Won't Dance" until I heard Armstrong sing "I know / that music leads the way to romance / So if I hold you in arms I won't dance . . . / I won't dance madame with you / My heart won't let me feet do things that / they want to do" in response to Fitzgerald's "When you dance, you're charming and you're gentle / 'Specially when you do the / Continental / But this feeling isn't purely mental." The song comes alive as a duet in a way that it never did for me when I heard Fitzgerald sing it alone. Moreover, there is no one better suited to take the male portion of it to Fitzgerald's feminine than Armstrong. And for those of us raised on much more explicit lyrics, it is fun to hear how the borders were initially pushed with lines like those.

In a musically similar way, Vernon Duke's song "Autumn In New York" fits Fitzgerald's vocal sensibilities perfectly. Fitzgerald takes the poetry of lines like "Why does it seem so inviting / Autumn in New York / It spells the thrill of first-nighting / Glittering crowds and shimmering clouds / In canyons of steel / They're making me feel - I'm home" ("Autumn In New York") come alive and seem wrenching and soulful. On Ella And Louis Again there are few songs like that, but they shine when they do appear.

Unfortunately, Ella And Louis Again is not without lyrical duds. Seeing an album devoted to the lyrics of Jerome Kerns ready for me to listen to gives me pause when I consider Kerns' song "A Fine Romance" on this album. Repetitive with the title and falling flat with its predictable rhymes, "A Fine Romance" disappoints. When Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong cannot make the poetics of "A fine romance with no quarrels / With no insults and all morals / I've never mussed the crease / In your blue serge pants / I never get the chance / This is a fine romance" ("A Fine Romance") sound good, one knows they have a severe writing problem. Sadly, this is the death knell of the album in this regard.

And it is not that Ella And Louis Again is a bad album, it is the sense that there is nothing extraordinary here or that is indispensable to the collections and sensibilities of either artist. If "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off" and "I Won't Dance" had appeared on the first outing, this one would have been entirely unremarkable and listeners would wonder what the point was. As it is, we are left wondering that, but we recognize how amazing the vocals are and we accept the album for what it is.

For other works by Ella Fitzgerald, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Ella At Duke's Place
Ella Fitzgerald With The Tommy Flanagan Trio
Shine
That Old Black Magic
Starlit Hour
Love And Kisses
Day Dream: Best Of The Duke Ellington Songbook
Oh, Lady, Be Good! The Best Of The Gershwin Songbook
Pure Ella

5/10

See how this album stacks up against others and read reviews of other albums by visiting the Music Review Index page that is organized by album quality!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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My February Artist Of The Month Continues Strong When Ella Fitzgerald Shine-s!

The Good: Great voice, Interesting music, Good mix
The Bad: SHORT!
The Basics: As I move into the works of Ella Fitzgerald, I am pleased by her vocal abilities and the creativity of her song choices on Shine.


Have you ever heard the phrase "usually your first experience with a new artist defines how the rest of your experience with them will go?" Or something more to the effect of "if you like the first thing you hear from an artist, it's likely to be your favorite?" When I chose Ella Fitzgerald as my February Artist Of The Month, part of my thought was that she made an ideal artist for Black History Month and another thought was that she had a wealth of material to call from. Moreover, reviewing her works would allow me to truly expand my knowledge of American music, in this case by listening to a lot of classical jazz and seeing what I thought about it. (It is worth noting for my regular readers that this was intended to be my first review of Ella Fitzgerald's works.)

To that end, my first barrage of Ella Fitzgerald albums are actually a series of compilation albums - I think! - and many of them have several of the same songs on them. Knowing that most of them are not going to pass my muster, I thought it would be good to start with the one I am enjoying most, which is ironically the first Ella Fitzgerald album I heard. That album was Shine and it immediately established for me a strong sense of appreciation for the abilities of Ella Fitzgerald.

With only ten songs, clocking out at 30:05, Shine is a great collection of songs performed by Ella Fitzgerald. Unfortunately, Ella Fitzgerald is a jazz vocalist and a performer as opposed to an artist, though her vocals are amazing. The problematic aspect for reviewing Ella Fitzgerald by my rigorous standards is that Fitzgerald is not so much an artist outside her vocalizations and as a result, she has very little of herself behind her albums. So, with Shine, Ella Fitzgerald does not write any of the songs, play any of the instruments or produce the album or its songs in any way. All Ella Fitzgerald does is perform.

This is no small feat, performing as Fitzgerald does. Widely known for her exceptional vocal range, Fitzgerald is exceptional on Shine. Starting with "Mr. Paganini," she soars up and down the scales effortlessly from bass up through soprano, though she keeps most of her vocals in the mid-range. The exceptional aspect of Fitzgerald's jazz vocalizations outside her exceptional range has to be her expressiveness (she makes buying gum a playful experience on "Chewin' Gum"), ability to sing quickly and articulately ("A Tisket, A Tasket") and her ability to captivate with a real sense of musical storytelling (Shine).

For those not inclined to jazz (and I am one of those people generally), the reason the album Shine is a great entre into the genre is that this album illustrates some great range and diversity. So, for example, Fitzgerald goes deep and throaty on tracks like "Basin Street Blues" and she does some classic jazz scatting on that track, "Flying Home" and "Mr. Paganini." As well, on several of the tracks, Fitzgerald takes a vocal risk by either putting a rest in a beat pattern that breaks it up or she hits what is apparently a wrong note while ascending or descending a scale - as she does on this version of "Mr. Paganini." But even though the ear tells us that it is the wrong note, it works; it is musical and interesting to hear at the very least.

As a lover of folk music, I found myself most impressed by the way Ella Fitzgerald sings musical storysongs on this album. Take, for example, "Mr. Paganini." On that song, Fitzgerald enchants the listener with her storytelling "The concert was over in Carnegie Hall / The maestro took bow after bow / He said, 'My dear friends I have given my all / I'm sorry, it's all over now' / When from the balcony way up high / There suddenly came a mournful cry / Oh, Mr. Paganini, please play my rhapsody / And if you cannot play it, won't you sing it? / And if you can't sing you'll simply have to. . ." ("Mr. Paganini"). Fitzgerald uses her voice and when she scats at the end of that line, it is actually a wonderful interpolation of the raw desire the rest of the lines have set the listener up for.

The amusing thing for me as a historian, as well, is how jazz of this early era made music out of mundane daily events. This happens when Fitzgerald uses a singsong series of lines to recount "My mama gave me a penny / To buy some candy / I didn't want the candy / So I bought some chewin' gum / (Oh, yum, yum, yum) / I love my gum / My mama gave me a nickel / To buy a pickle / I didn't want a pickle / So I bought some chewin' gum / (Oh, yum, yum, yum) / I bought some gum" ("Chewin' Gum"). That Fitzgerald can make it musical to be obsessed with gum might well amuse listeners today, but there is no denying that she presents the song with as earnest a quality as she does singing about her joy on "Holiday In Harlem."

Wisely, the people at Laserlight who created this compilation were sure to put in some enduring and universal songs. Arguably, the most accessible would be "I Got A Guy." Fitzgerald has few outright love songs on this album, but there is no denying the love with lines like "I got a guy / He don't dress me in sable / He looks nothing like Gable / But he's mine / And I think he's too divine / I got a guy / When he starts into pet me / He's the sauce on spaghetti / He's the kind that you can't keep off you mind" ("I Got A Guy"). In this way, Fitzgerald is more than just an exceptional performer of her time, she has something universal to sing to us now.

What might be a tougher sell to some listeners is the instrumentation that accompanies Ella Fitzgerald on Shine. All of the tracks, without fail, have a swinging big band jazz sound. There is a lot of brass and while it opens with a fanfare and piano, most of the songs use trumpets and such to create a sound that is toe-tapping and somewhat energetic. There is a decent use of clarinet on tracks like Shine and that type of instrumentation may be too different for some, though certainly not those who love jazz.

As one just getting into jazz, what is perhaps most disappointing about this particular recording is that it is so short. It leaves the listener wanting to hear more, but it is a poor use of the c.d. medium; one could stick at least two Ella Fitzgerald albums on a single disc and still have space left over. But what is here is so good, it is impossible not to recommend it.

The best track is "Mr. Paganini," the low point is the unmemorable "Flying Home."

For other works by Ella Fitzgerald, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Ella And Louis
Ella At Duke's Place
Ella Fitzgerald With The Tommy Flanagan Trio
That Old Black Magic
Starlit Hour
Love And Kisses
Day Dream: Best Of The Duke Ellington Songbook
Oh, Lady, Be Good! The Best Of The Gershwin Songbook
Pure Ella

7.5/10

Want to see how this album stacks up against other musical works I have reviewed? Be sure to visit my Music Review Index Page where the reviews are organized by rating, best work to worst, by clicking here!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Love And Kisses Ought Not To Be Bland, But Ella Fitzgerald Does It!

The Good: Voice (obviously!)
The Bad: Very generic swing jazz sound, SHORT, Poor mix
The Basics: A great artist - Ella Fitzgerald - with a poor compilation - Love And Kisses makes for a c.d. that may easily be avoided.


For those who might not follow my reviews, Ella Fitzgerald is my February Artist Of The Month and I have been enjoying much of her work as I have been experiencing it. However, the problem with reviewing the works of such a prolific performer is that when companies like Laserlight compile her songs, they often end up being a poor value. By that, I mean that among the first four albums by Ella Fitzgerald that I have listened to, which include That Old Black Magic and Starlit Hour have all been short and several of the same songs are cycled between them. As a result, it is worth noting up front that a critique of an album like Love And Kisses is largely about the lack of content and the way it comes together as an album (or fails to) more than any commentary on the artist or her work.

Indeed, it is worth noting that Ella Fitzgerald is an amazing vocalist who has clear vocal abilities and is inarguably one of the greatest vocal jazz performers of all time. She has an amazing range and a phenomenal ability to jump between different octaves and registers. Unfortunately, on the compilation Love And Kisses, Fitzgerald's range and true talents are often neglected or underused. In other words, while Ella Fitzgerald might be musically gifted, Love And Kisses is hardly the ideal collection.

With only ten songs, clocking out at a pretty sad 31:45, Love And Kisses is a pretty poor mix of the music that features vocalist Ella Fitzgerald. It is no surprise to those who listen to a lot of her music to learn, of course, that Fitzgerald only sings on the album. Ella Fitzgerald does not play any instruments on the album and she did not write any of the songs. Neither was she involved in any of the production of the album. As a result, Fitzgerald is much more of a performer than an artist and Love And Kisses is a pretty poor showing of even Fitzgerald as a performer.

So, for example, the album opens with "If You Should Ever Leave" and Love And Kisses, two songs that have extensive instrumental parts driving them. This means in the first five and a half minutes, the listener has quite a bit more of the accompanists' piano and trumpets than of Ella Fitzgerald's voice. It would behoove the good people at Laserlight who put this disc together to at least promote the vocals of Ella Fitzgerald on the albums that are supposed to be hers!

As it is, all of the songs on Love And Kisses share the same jazz swing sound that becomes awful bland when replayed over and over again. There is little track-to-track diversity and the stifling quantity of instrumentals throughout the album lowers the overall power of Ella Fitzgerald's vocals. The instrumentals overbear the vocals.

As for the famed vocals of Ella Fitzgerald, Love And Kisses is a poor outing for her. "How High The Moon," the third song on the album, is the only vocally impressive song and the lyrics to that are fairly inane. That track also has the only strong example of jazz scatting that Fitzgerald performs on the album. On that song, Ella Fitzgerald performs in the low register to scat, sends her voice into a soprano melody for the middle and articulates fast and high for the rest of it. But largely, Fitzgerald is given pieces that keep her either safe in the soprano range ("Sugar Blues") or that she is so comfortable with she ends up sounding bored ("Starlit Hour"). This is not the ideal album for those who want to be impressed by Ella Fitzgerald. Instead, it underwhelms the listener on the vocal front.

And as far as that goes, the only song that is even truly lyrically interesting that I discovered for the first time on this album was "Everyone's Wrong But Me." This song, which is a sort of "to hell with everybody else and what they think song," has beautifully confident and defiant lyrics like "I keep repeating, we'll never part / They tell me, wait and see / Still I love you / Everyone's wrong but me / Till the end of time / This much I know is true / Till the end of time / I'll go on loving you, only you / Tell them you love me, right from the start / And when they disagree / Just you tell them / Everyone was wrong but me" ("Everyone's Wrong But Me"). It is wonderful to hear such strength in a performer and Fitzgerald (mostly) sells it. The parenthetical comes into play because this particular recording has Fitzgerald somewhat muted and the master does not seem to balance her well with the instrumentals.

Lyrically, Love And Kisses is plagued by a sense of repetition. Most of the songs are rather short and as a result have to reuse the lines a few times to make the full, normal song length. This is not so bad, save that some of the lines have terribly singsong rhymes that add up to very little in the way of poetics; "It's a blue world / It takes somebody to help somebody / Oh it's a blue world / It's a new world / It needs somebody to love somebody / Oh it's a blue world" ("It's A Blue World"). While rhyming the same words with themselves can work sometimes, on this song, it seems more lazy and even Ella Fitzgerald sounds like she is pretty bored with it by halfway through.

Lyrically, the song that disappointed me the most had to be "How High The Moon." The vocals are so good and the sound of the song is so fresh and jazzy that I wanted it to mean something. Instead, it is a song with inane lyrics that muse poorly on the distance and scope of the moon. The result is a great sounding song with the lines "'How high the moon' / Is the name of this song / How high the moon / Though the words maybe wrong / We're singin' it because you ask for it / So we're swingin' it just for you / How high the moon / Does it touch the stars / How high the moon / Does it reach out to Mars. . ." ("How High The Moon")? One suspects that Fitzgerald did not have much in the way of veto power over what she performed from songs like this.

Ella Fitzgerald is an amazing vocalist, but Love And Kisses does not show that off sufficiently. As a result, this is a poor investment for those who love - or even just want to get to know - the works of Ella Fitzgerald.

The best track is "Everyone's Wrong But Me," the low point is "Just A Simple Melody."

For other works by Ella Fitzgerald, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Ella And Louis
Ella At Duke's Place
Ella Fitzgerald With The Tommy Flanagan Trio
That Old Black Magic
Starlit Hour
Day Dream: Best Of The Duke Ellington Songbook
Oh, Lady, Be Good! The Best Of The Gershwin Songbook
Pure Ella

2/10

For other music reviews, please be sure to visit my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Wonderful Mix, Pure Ella Is Still Not Quite "The Very Best Of Ella Fitzgerald."

The Good: Some amazing vocals, A decent mix of songs, Decent duration
The Bad: Some of the recordings are not the best versions of the songs.
The Basics: A worthwhile Ella Fitzgerald album, Pure Ella is a great, but not perfect or even the best compilation of her performances.


Anyone can throw around the phrase "The Very Best Of [Insert Artist's Name Here]" on an album, but when it comes to performer Ella Fitzgerald, to make such a claim is to throw down a ridiculous gauntlet. With an audio library as massive as that of Ella Fitzgerald, one suspects the fine folks at Verve were banking on few (if any) people listening to as much of the Ella Fitzgerald library as they could get their hands on. But as Ella Fitzgerald is my February Artist Of The Month, I have been listening to obscene amounts of Ella! The result is that I have heard a lot of great Ella Fitzgerald recordings now, as well as some of the lesser ones.

I mention this as prelude to my review of Pure Ella, because tucked away on the spine is the assertion The Very Best Of Ella Fitzgerald. And when the album began, I was fully prepared to accept Pure Ella as the ultimate compilation, if there had to be a single disc of Ella Fitzgerald works that was to be an ultimate compilation. I was heartened, for example, to see that the version of "They Can't Take That Away From Me" was the one originally recorded as a duet between Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong on Ella And Louis. Culling from various sources seemed like it might well create the best mix possible for the listener. Unfortunately, I am able to say with some authority that while the song choices on Pure Ella represent a perfect collection of songs that bring out Fitzgerald's musical and articulation abilities, some of the specific recordings are not her best performances of them. So, for example, both "A Tisket, A Tasket" and "You'll Have To Swing It (Mr. Paganini)" were culled from "Compact Jazz" and include the sounds of the audience annoyingly applauding throughout. Especially on "Mr. Paganini," I have heard better recordings, which is especially notable because it was one of the first songs I heard Ella Fitzgerald do jazz scatting on and impress me with it!

Still, with eighteen songs packing the disc with 72:18 worth of music, Pure Ella is an amazing compilation of some of the best recordings Ella Fitzgerald and her producers ever produced. Fitzgerald was, by definition, a performer who did not write her own material or present any instrumental performances. Her instrument was her voice and it was quite amazing. Even though this album does not contain my favorite version of "You'll Have To Swing It (Mr. Paganini)," Fitzgerald's voice in the last half of it is exceptional as it articulately soars and rings out clearly with a grace almost no performer or artist ever achieves.

The songs on Pure Ella are culled from productions that were written by some impressive talents. Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, and Cole Porter all wrote songs that Fitzgerald performs on this album. I was surprised to find none of Duke Ellington's songs made it onto this album, but Pure Ella does not feel like it is missing anything from that omission. All of the tracks were produced by Fitzgerald's long-time producer Norman Granz and Granz seemed to have a great ear for combining Fitzgerald's voice with the instrumentals in such a way that the instrumentals (almost) never overrun her vocals. On this album, he is respectful to keep her voice as the primary musical instrument.

The other instruments on this album are played by a variety of performers, but the collection is largely a jazz orchestra backing sound. As a result, most of the songs accompany Fitzgerald on piano with minimal brass. Still, some of the tracks do have light jazz woodwinds establishing a melody ("Love Is Here To Stay") when Fitzgerald is not singing. And, of course, Louis Armstrong plays his trumpet on "Summertime" and (uncredited) "They Can't Take That Away From Me." Generally, the tracks are slower and more smoky jazz, though Fitzgerald presents a fairly upbeat version of "Night And Day" and she seems to have some real fun with vocalizing "The Boy From Ipanema." She does a heartbreaking rendition of "Over The Rainbow" and it is hard not to fall silent and attentive to her presentation of it.

Fitzgerald is a captivating musical performer and Pure Ella portrays that fairly well. Fitzgerald is known for having domination over a full three octaves and she has an ability to leap from her lowest to her highest within a note. This is an extraordinary talent (for comparison, those who have grown up on current performers might note that while Mariah Carey can go quite high on her songs, this almost always requires her to go up a scale to get there) and one that has not been replicated by any other musical artist or performer since with any consistency or grace.

Part of what makes Pure Ella such a decent compilation is the quality of the lyrics. "The Boy From Ipanema" requires Fitzgerald to sing both fast and articulately and she nails ever syllable of the song, making it sound effortless. Similarly, even though "How High The Moon" might not be my favorite song, it is hard to argue with the way she combines her jazz scatting with the lines "Somewhere there's heaven / It's where you are / Somewhere there's music / How near, how far / The darkest night would shine / If you would come to me soon / Until you will, how still my heart / How high the moon" ("How High The Moon"). Fitzgerald has the ability to transform the inane into the extraordinary (or at the very least, tolerable!).

Even better is how Ella Fitzgerald uses her voice to bring out the raw potential emotion of words in songs. She takes the potential of the lines "Time and again I've longed for adventure, / Something to make my heart beat the faster. / What did I long for? I never really knew. / Finding your love I've found my adventure, / Touching your hand, my heart beats the faster, / All that I want in all of this world is you" ("All The Things You Are") and actualizes them to passionate emotions. Indeed, Fitzgerald's vocals transform words into instantly recognizable feelings that anyone who has been in love or experienced loss may understand perfectly. She helps define what it means to be a singer the listener may empathize with!

Even with all of my current immersion in the works of Ella Fitzgerald, there were still some songs on this that were new to me. As a result, I came to appreciate the soulful way Fitzgerald performed "Misty" with just a piano accompanying her. This is another passionate song where Fitzgerald is able to emote exceptionally across her full vocal range when she sings "Walk my way, / And a thousand violins begin to play, / Or it might be the sound of your hello, / That music I hear, / I get misty, the moment you're near. / Can't you see that you're leading me on? / And it's just what I want you to do, / Don't you notice how hopelessly I'm lost / That's why I'm following you" ("Misty"). Ella Fitzgerald may only be a performer, but it is songs like "Misty" that remind the cynics like me just how much a performer can be!

And Pure Ella is a worthwhile album for anyone considering getting into the works of Ella Fitzgerald, but it is not the very best album - or even compilation - of her performances I have yet heard. Still, it will be enough for almost anyone who wants to see what all the fuss about Ella Fitzgerald is all about. In that way, it truly is a Pure Ella experience!

The best track is "Over The Rainbow," the low point is the less memorable "Tea For Two."

For other works by Ella Fitzgerald, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Ella And Louis
Ella At Duke's Place
Ella Fitzgerald With The Tommy Flanagan Trio
That Old Black Magic
Starlit Hour
Day Dream: Best Of The Duke Ellington Songbook
Oh, Lady, Be Good! The Best Of The Gershwin Songbook

9/10

For other music reviews, please be sure to check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the albums I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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