Ella Fitzgerald - Classic or more Classic or even more Classic than that?

I need to say "joy" a few more times in this thread.

joy joy joy joy joy joy joy

dude on "everybody's boppin" there's this moment where ross goes dizzy & sings

that's it that's it that's it that's it

and it is like joy vocalized

Ella is beyond classic. I think maybe that it's her effortlessness in handling even the more difficult material that makes her seem a little more pilsbury than she really is.

"Whenever Ella Fitzgerald sings 'I'm gonna leave you', it invariably sounds like she's going to pop into the kitchen to make some sandwiches" - said a musician friend of mine recently, quoting ...I don't kno' whom exactly.
Well, made me wonder a bit.
Never been a great Ella fan myself; nor, on the other hand, by any means a hater. Which, I reckon, boils down to a 'lukewarmness' on my part as a listener, then.

Can anyone recommend an Ella record that is really all about the scat singing? I feel like I could use a concentrated dose, but the few records I know are mostly straight-ahead vocals with a few scatting tracks mixed in.

Satchmo rivaled both her and Billie in all respects, as far as I'm concerned: as musician and vocalist, heart-tugger and joy-bringer.

love billie's voice but the lucidity and pitch perfection of ella's is wow

It's Ella for me

dude on "everybody's boppin" there's this moment where ross goes dizzy & sings

that's it that's it that's it that's it

I've just listened to this song three times in a row and don't which part you're talking about. Where exactly in the song does this happen?

Oilyrags is WNYC's Jonathan Schwartz

Satchmo rivaled both her and Billie in all respects, as far as I'm concerned:

This is kind of an understatement considering how much both of them owed him in terms of influence, especially Billie

Hurting OTM.

I used to have an Ella problem because she was a little too upbeat and had been known on occasion not to pay too much attention to the lyrics, and a Billie problem because maybe sometimes she was a little too maudlin. I preferred Dinah Washington. But now I'm over that- it's all good.

But yeah, Ella is particularly good on that Ellington Songbook record, her chops are used to maximum jazz effect because she has to keep up with the band.

Ellington and Billy Strayhorn also brought out the best of Rosemary Clooney on that record they did with her.

I always used to prefer Dinah Washington for similar reasons. I also had a general jazzbo-musico bias against singers though.

Ernestine Anderson is the new Dinah Washington.

I've got to investigate Sassy a little further- all I've got on her is that live album with Richard Davis and either Roy Haynes or Lewis Hayes where she knocks over her lyrics stand during "Willow Weep For Me."

I had to google Jonathon Schwartz. Seems like a good guy, if a little singleminded. I bet he'd never start a thread about Spice-1.

http://dxxbdoob.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/ella-wishes-you-a-swinging-christmas.jpg

>_<

she's just crazy bout horses

i love this thread title. EF is as force of nature - Hurricane Ella (?)

Even more classic than that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmZ3EgtHUxk&feature=related

Just heard a track off the box set of lost live recordings that came out at the end of 2009, Twelve Nights in Hollywood, and it was amazing.

OK, been listening to this and it really is Ella like you've never heard her before, like that Sam Cooke Live At Harlem Square was Sam like you never heard him before.

good to know! i'll have to get it at some point -- i've been reading a bit of this http://www.amazon.com/Biographical-Guide-Great-Jazz-Singers/dp/0375421491 lately and it's making me get out my jazz vocal stuff.

OK, been listening to this and it really is Ella like you've never heard her before, like that Sam Cooke Live At Harlem Square was Sam like you never heard him before.

Okay, I definitely need to get this, then. Link?

seems like you can get it for fairly cheap by buying the split up two disc versions: http://www.amazon.com/Twelve-Nights-Hollywood-Ella-Fitzgerald/dp/B003AYUX8M/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=IIX5BJMSMR3WZ&colid=1X3ACMTXW3S2I
and http://www.amazon.com/Twelve-Nights-Hollywood-Ella-Fitzgerald/dp/B003PLYJBW/ref=pd_sim_m_1

(xp)
There was a box but now it is OOP, now split into two two CD sets
Vols 1 & 2: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003AYUX8M
Vols 3 & 4: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003PLYJBW

One weird thing, can't find a listing of the band anywhere on the packaging: but searching intranets tells me it is
bandleader Lou Levy on piano, Herb Ellis on guitar, Wilfred Middlebrooks on bass and Gus Johnson on drums.

There is a great story from Middlebrooks here:http://www.pitt.edu/~atteberr/jazz/articles/ella.html

"That night in Berlin, we were in front of twelve thousand people and at the end of a midnight concert. We had played Brussels earlier, flown to Berlin and been up for twenty-two hours. We were all so tired we couldn't hold our heads up, when Ella turns around and says, 'Let's do "Mack the Knife."

"My heart sank. I was too tired. We were in front of too many people to try something crazy, and I knew Ella didn't know the tune. I said, 'Well, golly Ella. . .' but before I could say anymore she had turned around and was announcing it. I looked at Paul and he just grinned. Of course he could play anything, but I was still a young dude and needed to run things down once. Paul said, 'I'll start us with the "Here Comes Charlie" vamp in G.' I could handle that, so we commenced. And just about the time I started feeling good (after a couple of choruses), Ella gave Paul a hand signal and switched to A-flat. She had great pitch, and I could hear just where she was going, but staying with her was something else. Paul just looked up at me and grinned.

"I thought, 'Well, I know she doesn't know this tune, so surely she'll stay put,' but I'll be damned if she didn't change keys again at the end of the next chorus, and the next and the next. We ended that thing in D-flat. It was all Paul could do to keep from laughing at me, for I was hanging on by the fingernails, as they say. I remember thinking at the end of the fourth or fifth chorus, 'Well, she's about as lost as she can get, Louis Armstrong will show up any minute,' because when Ella got lost in a swing number, she usually fell back on her Louis imitation, which was a sure fire a crowd pleaser. And sure enough, about that time, here came Louis.

That's really great

finally getting around to the 12 mights in hollywood thing -- heavenly. so great.

Wow, I missed the release of 12 Nights In Hollywood entirely, just listening to samples now. Again, wow. So great.

yeah, just seems like an embarrassment of riches. listening to her vamp on "perdido" now -- " someone asked for perdidohhhh, don't know the words to perdidohhhh!"

Haha, I just heard that too!

Recently started reading around in that Will Friedwald biographical guide to the great jazz singers tyler mentioned upthread. Very nice.

This Jazz Icons Live DVD is pretty good. First show features some version of the Oscar Peterson Trio, only without Oscar Peterson. Despite what it says on the back of the box, the inside essay by Will Friedwald says it is Don Abney.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCTD6wQ45VU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xQxN5Sxndc&list=RD6xQxN5Sxndc

I heard someone on the radio saying her 100th birthday is coming up earlier and couldn't get this one out of my head for some reason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exgm0t7LhY0

Lizz Wright's tour is gonna be a tribute to Ella's 100th birthday, and there's been several tribute gigs in DC. I've been listening to her theatrical take on Bacharach & David's (kinda sexist) "Wives & Lovers"

holy shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOuiv6U7DNU

happy 100th Ella, absolute ledge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDQ-Erg3KlQ

As usual, the Night Lights radio series comes up with an astute profile, delving and sweeping through the decades----I really wanna get the whole Porgy and Bess with Armstrong, the Gershwin songbook, and more like "Stompin' At The Savoy" (those live albums, yow)--stream/download here: http://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/ella-57-ella-fitzgerald-flies-high/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiUNFbNzBUI

Clap Hands Here comes Charlie is such a beautiful album, damn! I absolutely love it right now.

WBGO is playing a bunch of stuff from the live Ella at Zardi's, released last year after sitting in the vaults for sixty some odd years. Incredible stuff.

thanks for the heads up, sounds great

her louis armstrong impersonation!!!111!