I sent my pal Mike Nessing “Set Me Free” yesterday, the electronic dance masterpiece by Drop The Lime, and got a “not my cup of tea” in return!! I forgive him … the best Iron Maiden song in the world still has me scratching my head.
But there is good and there is good. And these recently discovered songs taped during Ella Fitzgerald Twelve Nights In Hollywood (Verve) twelve night stand at the Crescendo in Hollywood March 1961 and then an additional two nights in June 1962 are beyond what constitutes “oh yeah this is alright.” I forwarded what I consider the best vocal take on “Take the A Train” ever. her scatting at the end is so lovely, so controlled, so inventive, she seems to glide and fly on the melody line. I don’t know what to compare it to. I don’t know what to tell you if you can’t hear it. try harder.
And it is exactly one of SEVENTY SIX SONGS.
this is Ella at the height of her artistry which means it is Ella as the greatest singer ever. She has such a sweet and powerful joy, she speeds and stops, she glides and pulsates, binging and binging against the lyric till it wants to her and to her only. This isn’t Frank Sinatra making the song surrender or Billie making it weep or Armstrong (though he is closer) bending the song melody to his wll -this is Ella bringing you along for the ride. She lets you in.
“Thank you Frank SInatra fans” she jokes after a “The Lady Is A Tramp”, but Ella owns the American soundbook backwards and frontwards. She imitates Armstrong at one point, Dinah Washington at another, and she just seems able to capture them and make you hear and smile.
The thing is we are used to Ella with a big band and here she is in a small club and she you can pick and choose from all those sets!!! And so, among other things, you’re getting more than the canon, you’re getting the other stuff. The band: bass, drums, guitar, piano, that’s it.: she playfully syncophates through “Blue Moon”, croons an “Imagination”, playfully offers up “A Tiskit A Taskit”. Sure there’s a lovely “Our Love Is Here To Stay” but we’re here for other thrills.
On “Joe Williams Blues” the band is fast and loose as hell and Ella is improvising through the song, and holding notes, and dashing, and one minute she is singing “Georgia Georgia”, and the next “you win I’m in love with you”. The band is so sweet and it swings so fine, not hard, it is like the Tao everything bounces off it. There are so many moments here , so much that is so fine, so wonderful, it makes me want to live for ever. It makes me want to live in a world she lived in.
This isn’t revelatory because, cmon, this is Ella, we knew what we she was worth, we played Ella And Armstrong right through the hole in the middle, but I have never heard her grasp the moment this firmly, I have never heard her, for want of a better word, jazzier. An out and out masterpiece -go without dinner and buy it.
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