Pure Ella

Occupation

Ella Sings Gershwin is a jazz album by Ella Fitzgerald, recorded in two recording sessions in September 1950. It is Fitzgerald's first LP.

Background to the album

Your unofficial advisor at that time, Norman Granz, had with the Ella Fitzgerald cooperated with the Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts, advised her in 1950, she should urge their label Decca Records on giving her better material that you lay. Granz believed her voice and diction were perfect for the musician of American classics such as George and Ira Gershwin. The singer took his advice. Producer Milt Gabler of Decca Records finally was persuaded, and so she went with her companions at the piano, Ellis Larkins, on 11 and 12 September 1950 in the studio of Decca in New York and recorded eight Gershwin songs.

Publication history

From this session, the material came for an album with several singles, the 1950 Decca additionally as LP, initially in 10 -inch (25 cm) published. 1955 pushed Decca a 12-inch LP ( 30 cm) with additional material behind: two Gershwin songs on the A side - Nice Work If You Can Get It from the recording sessions with Ellis Larkins for the LP Songs in a Mellow Mood by 1954 Oh, Lady Be Good with Bob Haggart from the year 1947. on the B - side of a single two songs from 1946, recorded with the Billy Kyle Trio, which do not originate from the Gershwin. The two title Looking For A Boy / But Not For Me was published in 1950 as a single release in the shellac discs format.

The CD Pure Ella from 1994, published by GRP Records includes the original 1950 LP and the LP released in 1954, Songs in a Mellow Mood - also recorded in March 1954 with Larkins, with songs from the American Songbook. In 1999, the Universal 1955 Ella Sings Gershwin version of under the Decca label as a CD out. The eight Gershwin songs are also available on The Chronological Ella Fitzgerald - ( released in 2001 ) in 1950 to hear on CD 11 of a 15 -part CD series Classics Records.

Title

Analysis

Richard Cook and Brian Morton called the album Pure Ella in her review of " masterpiece " and a " essential" part of their discography, particularly by Larkins ' " friendly but perfect accompaniment ". Her voice is on the transition from girlish timbre of her early years through to the way how they should interpret the Songbook albums for Verve Records in the mid-1950s. Among the titles classics such as I've Got A Crush On You, But Not For Me, and Someone To Watch Over Me " Ella are brought each of them with all their sense of musical nuances and genuine sense of the text so intelligent and was polished and telling a story. Most of what they sang usually, be it pop, blues and jazz numbers, consisted mainly of choruses ".

Literature / Sources

  • Richard Cook, Brian Morton: The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD. 6th edition. ISBN 0-14-051521-6
  • Jim Haskins: Ella Fitzgerald - First Lady of Jazz. Heyne Verlag, Munich 1994
  • Bielefeld Catalog Jazz 2001
Record label Genre Singing George Gershwin Nice Work If You Can Get It (song) Oh, Lady Be Good! Great American Songbook Duke Ellington Mack David Harold Adamson Jimmy McHugh Richard Cook (journalist) Brian Morton (Scottish writer) Louis Jordan Rosemary Clooney
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