ELLA FIZGERALD & LOUIS ARMSTRONG - Ella & Louis - The Complete Norman Granz Sessions
ONE Records 59805 (3CD)
ELLA FITZGERALD, vocals LOUIS ARMSTRONG, trumpet & vocals, on all tracks,
CD 1 [1-11]: ELLA & LOUIS -
OSCAR PETERSON, piano; HERB ELLIS, guitar; RAY BROWN, bass; BUDDY RICH, drums.
Hollywood, August 16, 1956.
CD 1 [12-16] & CD 2 [1-14]: ELLA & LOUIS AGAIN
Same personnel as above except LOUIS BELLSON replaces Buddy Rich on drums.
Hollywood, July 23-31 & August 13, 1957.
CD 2 [15-16]:
TRUMMY YOUNG, trombone; EDMOND HALL, clarinet; BILLY KYLE, piano; DALE JONES, bass; BARRETT DEEMS, drums.
Live at the Hollywood Bowl, California, August 15, 1956.
CD 3: PORGY & BESS -
Orchestra conducted and arranged by RUSSELL GARCIA
Los Angeles, California, August 18-October 14, 1957.
What a great way to celebrate Ella’s 100th birthday: 3 cds of pure pleasure. Impresario Norman Granz, always full of good ideas, brought Ella and Louis together for three albums: Ella and Louis (Verve MGV4003) Ella and Louis Again (Verve MGV 4006) and Porgy and Bess (Verve MGV 4011). There is just one criticism: Louis does not play enough. By 1957 he was quite content to take it easy as far as playing the horn was concerned.
Ella started working for Verve and Granz in 1956. Granz believed that Ella had been badly managed for years and he thought so highly of Ella that he started Verve to feature her. He rapidly asked her to do albums of all the great American songwriters: Cole, Gershwin, Ellington, Rodgers and Hart, Berlin, Arlen, Kern and Mercer. For the albums with Louis, she cherry picks from those great American writers.
The ‘Porgy and Bess’ session is not the strongest. ‘Porgy and Bess’, in jazz it has severe competition. Garcia’s arrangements are a little heavy handed. However, ‘Summertiime’ is very effective and Ella and Louis manage to invest it with some real emotion. Louis’s reading of the lyrics is impressive, just listen to the way that he retells the story of a marriage in ‘Makin’ Whoopee’. Throughout the albums, when he plays gently behind Ella’s singing, it is sheer pleasure. The rhythm section on the first two CDs is the Granz house rhythm team. Peterson chugs along. Peterson can be effusive but here, he is restrained.
The three CDs have a booklet that has liner notes from the original albums.
Granz in the liner notes says about the second album: ‘Anyway, there isn’t much point in further discussing this album because it genuinely is too good to even try to explain; you simply listen and marvel at how great Ella and Louis are.’
Granz, of course, is right: two of the greatest artists in jazz playing some of the best popular music with sympathetic accompanists. Who could ask for anything more?
Reviewed by Jack Kenny
ONE Records 59805 (3CD)
ELLA FITZGERALD, vocals LOUIS ARMSTRONG, trumpet & vocals, on all tracks,
CD 1 [1-11]: ELLA & LOUIS -
OSCAR PETERSON, piano; HERB ELLIS, guitar; RAY BROWN, bass; BUDDY RICH, drums.
Hollywood, August 16, 1956.
CD 1 [12-16] & CD 2 [1-14]: ELLA & LOUIS AGAIN
Same personnel as above except LOUIS BELLSON replaces Buddy Rich on drums.
Hollywood, July 23-31 & August 13, 1957.
CD 2 [15-16]:
TRUMMY YOUNG, trombone; EDMOND HALL, clarinet; BILLY KYLE, piano; DALE JONES, bass; BARRETT DEEMS, drums.
Live at the Hollywood Bowl, California, August 15, 1956.
CD 3: PORGY & BESS -
Orchestra conducted and arranged by RUSSELL GARCIA
Los Angeles, California, August 18-October 14, 1957.
What a great way to celebrate Ella’s 100th birthday: 3 cds of pure pleasure. Impresario Norman Granz, always full of good ideas, brought Ella and Louis together for three albums: Ella and Louis (Verve MGV4003) Ella and Louis Again (Verve MGV 4006) and Porgy and Bess (Verve MGV 4011). There is just one criticism: Louis does not play enough. By 1957 he was quite content to take it easy as far as playing the horn was concerned.
Ella started working for Verve and Granz in 1956. Granz believed that Ella had been badly managed for years and he thought so highly of Ella that he started Verve to feature her. He rapidly asked her to do albums of all the great American songwriters: Cole, Gershwin, Ellington, Rodgers and Hart, Berlin, Arlen, Kern and Mercer. For the albums with Louis, she cherry picks from those great American writers.
The ‘Porgy and Bess’ session is not the strongest. ‘Porgy and Bess’, in jazz it has severe competition. Garcia’s arrangements are a little heavy handed. However, ‘Summertiime’ is very effective and Ella and Louis manage to invest it with some real emotion. Louis’s reading of the lyrics is impressive, just listen to the way that he retells the story of a marriage in ‘Makin’ Whoopee’. Throughout the albums, when he plays gently behind Ella’s singing, it is sheer pleasure. The rhythm section on the first two CDs is the Granz house rhythm team. Peterson chugs along. Peterson can be effusive but here, he is restrained.
The three CDs have a booklet that has liner notes from the original albums.
Granz in the liner notes says about the second album: ‘Anyway, there isn’t much point in further discussing this album because it genuinely is too good to even try to explain; you simply listen and marvel at how great Ella and Louis are.’
Granz, of course, is right: two of the greatest artists in jazz playing some of the best popular music with sympathetic accompanists. Who could ask for anything more?
Reviewed by Jack Kenny
