Underboss
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 1,473 No. Virginia
I'm very embarrassed that I neglected Ella's 100th birthday yesterday. Above Sinatra, above Crosby, she's undoubtedly the greatest interpreter of American popular music. Her "songbook" albums of the great American composers - Porter, Rogers & Hart, Elington, Berlin, Gershwin, Arlen, Kern, and Mercer - took about nine years to complete and are staggering in the number of great tracks they contain. She fronted a major band as a teenager, was a star by her early twenties, and her voice remained stunningly good until her general health started failing when she was in her sixties.
I can load over 400 Ella Fitzgerald songs on an iPod, and there are days when I just listen to her all day. Why listen to anyone else?
"All of these men were good listeners; patient men."
Re: April 25: Ella Fitzgerald centennial
[Re: mustachepete]
#911377 04/26/1712:44 PM04/26/1712:44 PM
Underboss
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 1,473 No. Virginia
Ella and Louis did three albums together for Verve in the 50s, including one devoted to selections from Porgy and Bess, and those are available as a triple CD now. I can't even begin to choose a favorite track from that (other than whatever one I'm listening to).
"All of these men were good listeners; patient men."
Re: April 25: Ella Fitzgerald centennial
[Re: mustachepete]
#911474 04/28/1711:31 AM04/28/1711:31 AM
If Patsy Cline hadn't had died so young then i think she would have gone down as one of the greatest.
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Re: April 25: Ella Fitzgerald centennial
[Re: mustachepete]
#912073 05/07/1703:36 PM05/07/1703:36 PM
Ella was influenced by Ethel Waters. I got to see her when Route 66 filmed an episode in Pittsburgh. A bunch of us ventured down to the Lincoln Ave location to watch it.
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