AVID Jazz presents three classic Ella Fitzgerald albums plus including original LP liner notes on a finely re-mastered and low priced double CD.
"Like Someone In Love"; "Hello Love" "Ella Swings Brightly With Nelson"; three tracks from "Ella Swings Gently With Nelson" and five tracks from "Ella Fitzgerald at the Opera House"
No other words need be used other than those embracing the liner notes of "Like Someone In Love". "This is it-if you're in love, if you've ever loved, if you're about to fall in love; in short, if you're a member of the human race, then these sounds are for you…Ella's feeling and the beauty of the songs about people in love". Recorded in Los Angeles in 1957 and featuring arrangements and orchestra conducted by Frank De Vol with "the sensitive poignant saxophone solos …by Stan Getz ". Frank De Vol again joins Ella as he conducts her on "Hello Love" a collection of standards dedicated to that grandest of passions….love. Such is Ella's interpretation of these songs and the "way she bends a melody to her own ends" it is as if she has almost had a hand in writing them! Ella is accompanied by Nelson Riddle for the two albums "Swings Brightly" and "Swings Gently" in a kind of mopping up operation! By that we mean Ella was in danger of having almost exhausted all the great songs as the original liner notes worryingly allude to. "There are many outstanding songwriters, their reputations less glamorous than those of Porter, the Gershwin's, Berlin, Rodgers & Hart and Duke Ellington, but who none the less produced many songs which slowly attained the status of standards. It is the work of these men that largely comprise the repertoire on these L.P's." Is she jazz or pop? Is that the question, should it be the question? Ella Fitzgerald is at home in either category. Here live "At the Opera House" with Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown and Jo Jones she is singing popular standards with a jazz quartet! As noted in the original liner notes "she is one of the few people who can please two publics without condescending to either, yet despite her attachment to jazz since the pre-war days with Chick Webb, there are many who still consider Ella simply as a ballad or popular singer". We at AVID say do not try to label her at all! Just listen with open ears and an open mind to the perfection in her voice as she interprets songs from the finest and not always perhaps not the most famous songwriters around.
All three albums plus have been digitally re-mastered.
