Could he care to point exactly in which parts of the song Ella "sounds as if she has not quite worked out where she can breathe to best advantage"? I can't hear any. In the case of "Too Darn Hot", I really don't get where his complaints are coming from. Definitely there isn't lack of polish in Ella's versions of these songs and many are flat-out amazing and perfect. To sum up: I like the Cole Porter Songbook, I love the Rodgers/Hart one!Ĭlick to expand.I don't get where he's coming from. Overall, Buddy Bregman's arrangements on the Rodgers/Hart Songbook are on average far superior and richer, like in swings such as Johnny One Note, The Lady Is A Tramp, This Can't Be Love, Give It Back To The Indians, and absolutely gorgeous in ballads My Romance, My Funny Valentine, I Could Write A Book, Spring Is Here. Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye is my favorite example, I love this track so much, my favorite in the entire Songbook, there is such a gentle and beautiful purity and sweetness to it that this world would be a mistake without this version.
Sure, Nelson Riddle's arrangements for the Gershwin Songbook are far more detailed and sophisticated, but the arrangements in the Cole Porter are at worst serviceable, not getting in Ella's way, and at best they allow Ella to swing well (It's All Right With Me and It's De-Lovely are just a few amazing examples, I love these tracks) and have a really sweet orchestral lushness of typical of Old Hollywood films that I love. 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.Click to expand.Come on, they aren't that bad. 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. 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. 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). 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”). Most of these writers, save for Porter and Berlin, had lyricist partners (Mercer was primarily known as a lyricist, not a composer). Porter would be followed by Rodgers & Hart, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, the Gershwins, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, and finally Johnny Mercer in 1964.
Granz knew she possessed greater versatility, and with the Verve songbooks he sought to connect her to the widest possible audience.Įlla Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook was the first of what would be eight albums in this vein, each devoted to a single composer. 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. 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.
#Ella fitzgerald sings the cole porter songbook series#
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.
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