1. Night And Day
2. Medley: The Man I Love/Body and Soul
3. Honeysuckle Rose
4. Old McDonald Had A Farm
5. In A Mellotone
6. 'Round Midnight
7. Blue Moon
8. Manteca
9. Medley: I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good/Sophiscated
Lady
10. Georgia On My Mind
11. Flying Home
Ella Fitzgerald - Vocals
Paul Smith - Piano (tracks 1-8)
Keter Betts - Bass (tracks 1-8)
Bobby Durham - Drums (tracks 1-8)
Joe Pass - Guitar (tracks 9-11)
Harry "Sweets" Edison - Trumpet (track 11)
Clark Terry - Flugelhorn (track 11)
J. J. Johnson, Al Grey - Trombones (track
11)
Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Zoot Sims - Tenor saxes
(track 11)
Oscar Peterson - Piano (track 11)
Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen - Bass (track
11)
Louie Bellson - Drums (track 11)
Ella Fitzgerald was the
supreme jazz singer. Sarah Vaughan may have
been more technically complex and Billie Holiday
may have been more rawly emotional, but Ella
approached the nearest to what a true jazz
vocalist can be. Even at the age of 66, when
this "Jazz at the Philharmonic" concert was
filmed in Tokyo, she was still magnificent.
Admittedly her voice had become a little quavery
- especially when using vibrato - but her
spirit and jazz feeling were undiminished.
Time and again during this concert, one marvels
at the adroitness of her voice and the inventiveness
of her improvisations. She used her voice
like a musician playing jazz on an instrument,
and thus she epitomised jazz.
This is clear in the opening
number, Night and Day, where she spins
out the ending in unexpected ways (what Whitney
Balliett called "the sound of surprise").
By now her voice was more unsteady at slow
tempo, yet she still plays with the melody
in The Man I Love - in the same way
that a jazz instrumentalist might do. And
she segues effortlessly into Body and Soul,
making a short detour into I Loves You
Porgy before an ending which takes her
from the top to the bottom of her range.
Honeysuckle Rose introduces
Ella's famous scatting for the first time
in the concert, swapping daring eights with
pianist Paul Smith. At this point it is worth
mentioning the peerless backing she receives
from the accompanying trio, who have the difficult
task of following her unpredictable twists
and turns. Then a steamingly fast tempo takes
her into Old McDonald Had a Farm, not
exactly a jazz standard but nonetheless Ella
turns it into a jazzy performance, shifting
up a key for each chorus. She tells the audience
jokingly: "We did this for our country-and-western
fans".
In a Mellotone finds
her accompanied simply by Keter Betts's double
bass (and the audience's handclapping, correctly
on the offbeat). Again, she uses her voice
like an instrumentalist and even imitates
a growling trombone. In complete contrast,
she delivers a poignant reading of Thelonious
Monk's 'Round Midnight. Blue Moon
is preceded by the seldom-heard verse and
Ella ends with a vigorous scat version of
Dizzy Gillespie's Manteca. She sweats
profusely, wipes her brow, and comments several
times on how hot it is, but she doesn't even
stop for a drink of water.
The mood quietens down for
some duets with guitarist Joe Pass, after
which the concert ends with a ten-minute all-star
jam session typical of Norman Granz's JATP
concerts. Ella scats along with the horn players,
who all play solos, driven along by the irresistible
beat of Oscar Peterson and Niels-Henning Orsted
Pedersen.
Released for the first time
on DVD, this represents the second half of
a JATP concert, of which the first half was
on the companion DVD - OH 4643. The sound
quality is fine and the picture is generally
clear, although the colours sometimes look
rather strange. There are excellent close-ups
of the front-line players in the jam session.
The fact that Ella sang so
often with top-class musicians on Jazz at
the Philharmonic Tours may help to account
for her matchless vocal maturity. Despite
the occasional vocal flaws due to advancing
age, Ella's performance on this DVD is an
object lesson in what real jazz singing is
about. You are not a jazz vocalist if you
simply sing jazz standards. And you are certainly
not if you call yourself a jazz singer without
having any jazz sensibility at all. You need
to have listened to, and learned from, the
great jazz musicians - just as Ella Fitzgerald
did.
Tony Augarde
CD Reviews
Standing
Oh!vation OH 44645
