1. Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye
2. Cry Me A River
3. Manhattan
4. The Best Is Yet To Come
5. I Get A Kick Out Of You
6. Cheek To Cheek
7. Don't Fence Me In
8. Get Happy
9. Night and Day
10. Let's Face The Music and Dance
11. Summertime
12. Someone To Watch Over Me
13. Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love)
14. They Can't Take That Away From Me
15. Let's Fall In Love
16. You Do Something To Me
17. One For My Baby
18. A Fine Romance
19. Wait Till You See Him (De Phazz remix)
20. Angel Eyes (Layo & Bushwacka mix)
Ella Fitzgerald - Vocals
As
this is the 90th anniversary of Ella Fitzgerald's
birth, it is no surprise that many albums
of her recordings are being released or re-released.
This is the first of three CDs I have for
review. We live in an age of "The Very Best
of..." and "The Greatest Hits" - and this
album has "The Ultimate Collection" printed
down the side of the CD case, while the other
two albums are called respectively "The Essential
Collection" and "The Very Best of..." However,
as George Orwell might have said, some "Very
Bests" are better than others.
This
CD starts well enough, with Ella's classic
versions of Ev'ry
Time We Say Goodbye and
Manhattan among
the first three tracks. These are from her
marvellous Songbooks, which (we tend to forget)
made many listeners aware of the riches in
the compositions of such people as Rodgers
& Hart and Cole Porter. Those songbooks
are generously represented here, with five
songs by Cole Porter, three by Harold Arlen
and three by the Gershwins. Two of the Gershwin
songs - Summertime
and They
Can't Take That Away From Me
- are duets with Louis Armstrong, with whom
Ella made some of her most memorable recordings.
Their contrasting personalities fused wondrously
together, with Louis's eloquent trumpet as
an added bonus. Even the excessively lush
orchestral backing in Summertime
couldn't prevent Ella and Louis giving a classic
performance. And They
Can't Take That Away From Me
has that inimitable feeling of cheerful togetherness
which marked out their collaborations with
Oscar Peterson and his jazz confederates.
That's
the good news. But calling this album "The
Ultimate Collection" is stretching the facts.
Where is Ella's first hit, A-Tisket,
A-Tasket?
Where is her uproarious version of Mack
the Knife?
And why are there none of her ebullient live
performances with Jazz at the Philharmonic?
In truth, the ultimate collection of Fitzgerald
tracks would probably comprise at least a
dozen CDs, since she was not only very prolific
but also so many of her recordings should
be in every jazz fan's collection. This doesn't
excuse the compilers' inclusion of the last
two tracks - remixes with horrible mechanised
hip-hop rhythms. The final Angel
Eyes
adds so much echo that Ella sounds as if she
was singing in the midst of a caving expedition.
At
least the album gives us more than 78 minutes
of music, but the presentation leaves much
to be desired. The cover picture looks more
like Sarah Vaughan than Ella Fitzgerald, and
the sleeve contains merely the recording dates
of each track but no personnels and no indication
of which album they came from. Ella Fitzgerald
is such a supreme singer that nobody should
turn down a free gift of any collection of
her work but this CD could have been much
better if more care had been taken over its
selection and presentation.
Tony
Augarde
CD Reviews
Universal
9848373
