Jazz
Ella Fitzgerald Vocal
Louis Armstrong Trumpet, Vocal
Trummy Young Trombone
Edmond Hall Clarinet
Billy Kyle Piano
Oscar Peterson Piano
Herb Ellis Guitar
Ray Brown Bass
Dale Jones Bass
Louie Bellson Drums
Barrett Deems Drums
Buddy Rich Drums
Russell Garcia Arranger, Conductor
This compact, stylishly packaged, three-disc box set delivers exactly what the title promises: every one of the 47 master tracks (including a few unreleased tracks) recorded by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong for Verve between August 1956 and October 1957. The jazz standards and pop songs on disc one and two are what gained the most attention at the time, and justifiably so--Fitzgerald and Armstrong are possiblythe two greatest scat singers in jazz history, and under Norman Granz's magnificent tutelage, both perform at the best of their abilities.
But it's the material on disc three that's possibly the most satisfying. Fitzgerald and Armstrongperform the complete song score to George and Ira Gershwin's PORGY AND BESS, and it may well be the definitive vocal interpretation, as individual yet true to the intent of the composers as Miles Davis's and Gil Evans' more renowned instrumental version. Fitzgerald and Armstrong's take on the scoreis an overlooked masterpiece.
Ella Fitzgerald has, for one reason and another, remained the most vigorous and ineffable singer in jazz and popular music. Her style was virtually set by the time she began professionally in the Thirties with Chick Webb. It was a rhythmical, agile, humorous way of singing that depended on a healthy, rather ordinary voice; a lack of usless ornmamentation (most young singers today affect styles that are, basically, borrowed ornamentations); a direct and understanding delivery of lyrics (again, most young singers handle lyrics as if they were sucking mothballs); and a musicianship that enabled her to get away from the melody in a way that any composer would have been proud had he thought of it originally. It has, nevertheless, become more subtle, more flexible, more polished, and recently has manifested a luminous lyricism that is not apparent so much in its single parts as in the whole. She gives the impression today of the finished artist whose seams no longer show, whose approach is stable but exciting, and whose mind is in balance with the heart.
Louis Armstrong, on the other hand, has retained the insuperable singing style he had worked out by the late Thirties. There is less of the whooping, shoveling quality in his voice, which has, like rough waters, inevitably smoothed down, but the great singing foundation is apparent, particularly in the way he approaches ballads. And what great warmth and soul! What his voice has always been is an indication of how jazz singing could go. Louis invariably handles melody like a bear giving a hug; he smothers it in the peculiarities of his voice and enunciation, and out pops a new shape - a kind of counter-melody, dressed, nevertheless, in tweeds and pearls. |
