The Official ELLA FITZGERALD Love Thread- Page 2

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 5/19/07 at 8:39pm

She is tied with Etta James as my favorite singer of all time. I love this woman's voice SO MUCH. I need to get that box set. You can never have to much Ella.

Updated On: 5/19/07 at 08:39 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/19/07 at 8:47pm

I love the Decca material because I came to it late. The Verve material is more widely "respected," because it includes the songbook series and Norman Granz had her singing with real jazz artists. The Pablo material represents the concerts I saw her do during the 1970s and early 80s--when her voice was less supple but more mature, yet just as filled with joy.

But the Decca material represents who she was when she was developing as a singer--before they knew what to do with her and as she was becoming a solo singer and not just a bandsinger.

Listen to the early scats on the Decca stuff: Lady Be Good and Air Mail Special. She was taking the advances that Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker were making in be-bop with flatted fifths and afterbeat syncopations and popularizing them with her vocals. Dizzy and Charlie LOVED her--and she worshiped them the way she had Chick Webb.

The Decca material is jazz history unfolding.

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 5/19/07 at 8:51pm

You just made my mouth water. haha.

[GoSmileLaughCryClap]

Posted: 5/19/07 at 10:50pm

She was the favorite singer of my mother and father. When I was a kid, she played the Uris (now the Gershwin) with Sinatra and Count Basie. I saved my allowance and bought tickets for my mom and dad as a Christmas present. I remember that the tickets were bigger than standard ones, and gold. And they were forty dollars each, which at the time was unheard of.

My parents were thrilled, which in retrospect is pretty funny, considering that they basically paid for them through my allowance!

[aspen]

Posted: 5/20/07 at 11:25am

Ella is the reason I still own an audio-casette playet. Ella is the reason I still own a record-player. Ella is the reason I saw Wizard of Oz and was not really impressed by Judy Garland's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". 'Nuf said.

[DG]

Posted: 11/11/07 at 12:42pm

Ella AND Sarah AND Pearlie Mae - I would have fallen over dead from joy!
Sing, Ladies, SING!!!

[son_of_a_gunn_25]

Posted: 11/11/07 at 1:11pm

Updated On: 12/23/09 at 01:11 PM

[~FloweryFriend~]

Posted: 11/11/07 at 1:14pm

Ella is the Queen.
Scat-tastic

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/11/07 at 3:58pm

Thanks, DG and flowery--I forgot about this thread!

[jaystarr]

Posted: 11/11/07 at 4:01pm

Oh my god . Yes.. Its about time

I love love her. I have all her Songbook CD's...

Cole Porter
Harold Arlen
George Gershwin (Oh! Lady Be Good CD)
Rodgers & Hart

Porgy & Bess (with Loius Armstrong)

J*
Updated On: 11/11/07 at 04:01 PM

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/12/07 at 10:30am

Last night we had friends over for dinner, and Ella entertained us with the Harold Arlen Songbook.

Pure magic.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/12/07 at 11:36am

I like to call that one "Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Henri Matisse Songbook":

[jaystarr]

Posted: 11/12/07 at 3:49pm

I start my morning (at 7 am at work) everyday by listening to Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday then Chet Baker or Dinah Washington...then I progress to other singers..

By afternoon... I go for...Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, Dave Brubeck's Time Out
or something contemporary like Jamie Cullum or Renee Olstead

and I do this religiously everyday (monday-friday) when at work

I cant do my morning right without my coffee and the voice of Ella..

When I am depressed.. I listen to Ella's Harold Arlen Songbook...(in this order)

Get Happy
Accentuate the Positive
Out of This World
DingDong ! The Witch is Dead
Over the Rainbow

then I snapped out of my blues

Slow Sunday afternoon mood (just sipping coffee) and looking at Boston's skyline. I usually play my Ella's Oh, Lady! Be Good CD- Gershwin Songbook (in this order)

Fascinating Rhythm
's Wonderful
Someone to Watch Over Me
A Foggy Day
Ive Got A Crush On You
Nice Work If You Get It

All I can say.....Thank you... Ella ! You made my life tolerable (sometimes) beautiful and colorful ! You are a sublime gift ....



J*




Updated On: 11/12/07 at 03:49 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/26/14 at 9:23am

Here's an old one.

[dented146]

Posted: 4/26/14 at 12:26pm

It is wonderful to see this thread. Ella was my mom's favorite and she became mine as well. Mom claims that Sinatra was once asked to whom he listened and he said " Ella, of course."

I play her very often in my office and my staff who are all fairly young have come to appreciate her; they have learned about the song writers of that era and to distinguish Porter from Gershwin and Arlen.

She is as special as they come.

[bwaylvsong]

Posted: 4/26/14 at 12:51pm

This might be my favorite vocal performance ever:
Let's Do It

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 4/26/14 at 1:15pm

PJ, have you shared the Ella story about you and Leonard Bernstein?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/26/14 at 1:33pm

So I've told this story before in the olden times of BWW, but Reggie asked me to tell it again.

Ella Fitzgerald was responsible for Leonard Bernstein taking me seriously. But first listen to this if you've never heard Ella's famous scat version of the Gershwins' "Lady Be Good":


http://youtu.be/6CGJCkNXzX4



Okay, here goes...

===

One night in Miami, after a performance of the "Debbie Allen" revival of West Side Story, on which I was assistant to the directors (Jerome Robbins and Gerald Freedman), Mister Bernstein (we were instructed to refer to all the "creators" of the show as Mister So-and-So) decided to take the music staff out to dinner at Joe's Stone Crab to thank them for their hard work. He invited me along, since I had been conveying his nightly notes on the performances to Mister Robbins and Mister Freedman. (Mister Robbins and Mister Laurents and Mister Bernstein had all decided they weren't speaking to each other, for reasons none of them could probably have articulated.) As assistant to Mister Freedman, I was elected go-between.

In the limo on the way to dinner Mister B asked the musicians, out of the blue, "What was the name of the band singer who sang with Duke Ellington in 1929 and then again in the early 40s?" He said he could hear her voice but couldn't remember her name.

"Lena Horne?" one of them offered. Bernstein just scowled and said, "Lena Horne was a baby in 1929. She couldn't have sung with Duke Ellington."

"Helen Forrest?" another suggested, which made Lenny even madder. "Helen Forrest was a white girl. She may have sung like a black girl, but she was white. The one I'm thinking of sang 'Love Is Like a Cigarette.'"

I happened to know a little about jazz vocalists, mostly because I loved Ella so much that I had been buying recordings of her contemporaries. "You don't mean Ivie Anderson, do you?" I asked.

Well, he did. Leonard Bernstein proceeded to quiz me about Ivie Anderson and Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan and Helen Humes, quickly determining just how much I knew and--more to the point--how much I didn't. Then he decided to challenge me.

"Do you know Ella Fitzgerald's scat to 'Lady Be Good'?"

"Of course I do," I said, wary that he was throwing me a trick question. "That's famous."

"All right, then. Sing it!"

I am a terrible singer, and I knew only the first chorus or so, which i proceeded to sing pretty badly. But Lenny, of course, knew the entire song, with all of Ella's embellishments and interpolations. He picked up where I stopped and sang the rest, with me joining in here and there when he hit some phrase I remembered. Each time I joined in, it seemed to delight him, and each time I dropped out, it delighted him even more. Despite the fact that he was an acknowledged genius, he was shockingly competitive. My dropping out made him the winner.

By the time the limo pulled up to Joe's Stone Crab, the duet was over, Lenny was exhilarated, the music staff hated me, and Ella Fitzgerald had given me the experience of a lifetime.

Updated On: 4/26/14 at 01:33 PM

[Miranda3]

Posted: 4/26/14 at 11:18pm

I love this story of Ella's graciousness. Johnny Dankworth, Cleo Laine's husband, had served as Ella's music director at some time before the mid 1970s, when Cleo came to the US and her career here took off after that first concert at Allice Tully Hall. So Ella had known Cleo for some time. When Cleo got her Grammy, Ella sent her a huge bouquet of roses with a note saying, "'Bout time, girl!" So gracious and down to earth. Very Ella, right?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/27/14 at 8:24am

The story of the friendship between Ella and Marilyn Monroe has developed additional resonance in the past few years, as it has circulated around the Internet.

Unlike most Internet stories, which should be checked against Snopes.com before posting, this one is entirely true and never fails to move me deeply.





How Marilyn Monroe changed Ella Fitzgerald’s life

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/25/17 at 8:29am

Happy 100th birthday, Ella.

[MichelleCraig]

Posted: 4/25/17 at 8:34pm

Loved hearing the tribute to her on NPR today.