Notes: The reissue adds alternates of “You’re the Top,” “I Concentrate on You,” and “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love).”
Awards:
Sings the Cole Porter Songbook
Ella Fitzgerald
Review:
“Ella Fitzgerald, ‘The First Lady of Song’” (NRR) is “arguably history’s finest jazz singer” (Johnson). She “will be long appreciated for her beautiful voice, thoughtful lyric interpretation, imaginative scat singing, and impeccable enunciation. The Cole Porter Songbook is “a striking…set featuring…some of the best-written American pop standards on one of jazz’s most prolific labels” (Johnson). It was “the first of her many anthologies devoted to the pantheon of American popular song composers and lyricists” (NRR), “a series that was started by the success of this set” Heller). “Fitzgerald’s songbook collections of various composers…are all wonderful, but her natural wit and intelligence was at its most perfect with Cole Porter’s erudite, urbane songs” (Heller). She “shines as the perfect interpreter of Cole Porter’s bittersweet love songs” (Johnson).
“Recorded and released on LP in 1956, Ella is joined by such luminaries as Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, and Billie Holiday and is backed by jazz legends such as Artie Shaw and Buddy Bregman” (Johnson). “While not as scat-oriented as her small group outings, [this collection offers] her most realized pop performances” (Heller).
“In the Verve tradition, the packaging is in-depth and the original liner notes by Norman Granz are reproduced faithfully, evoking that classic LP feel” (Johnson).
“This collection is one of those rare albums that can be treated as a terrific introduction to a classic artist, as well as remaining a treasured recording for the most scholarly jazz aficionados” (Johnson). “A true American music gem” (Heller).
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