Ella Fitzgerald

[HERO]

Ella Fitzgerald: EIE, ESE, or SEE

http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_a...lla+Fitzgerald

Robert Christgau:

'Ken Burns Jazz [Verve, 2000]
Suffering and subtlety may be the way of truth, but though I've revered Billie Holiday for 40 years, they're not the only way. First time through this rocket ship of an argument for Fitzgerald as blithe spirit and improvising musician, I was put off by the opener, her first and biggest hit, "A-Tisket, A-Tasket." It was so silly, so girly. But as she floated through the closer--the almost as flighty "Shiny Stockings," once again with words by the artiste--it dawned on me that she sounded just as girly at 45. And that was 1963, by which time she had outscatted everybody this side of King Louis, defined the pop canon, and ebulliently declared to her impeccably credentialed jazz combo, "I wanna rock, I wanna roll." Girly was so much her gift that it's too bad there isn't anything later--she was still making young records past 60. There were many things she didn't understand--that's why the token "blues" is a pop song about blues. But there was plenty Billie didn't understand too. Ella outlived her on the difference. A+'






"They say into your early life romance came / And in this heart of yours burned a flame / A flame that flickered one day and died away / Then with disillusion deep in your eyes/You learned that fools in love soon grow wise / The years have changed you, somehow, I see you now/Smoking, drinking, never thinking of tomorrow, nonchalant / Diamonds shining, dancing, dining with some man in a restaurant / Is that all you really want? / No, sophisticated lady / I know, you miss the love you lost long ago / And when nobody is nigh you cry . . . ."










http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_a...lla+Fitzgerald

Love Songs: Best of the Verve Song Books [Verve, 1996]
The third hour-long budget album PolyGram has constructed from that 16-CD box you passed on seems much the best to me. It doesn't limit a swinging chick to ballads, or apply her automatic sophistication to lyrics whose brilliance verges on silly, like "Miss Otis Regrets" or "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered." Because the emotional complexities love songs deal in are known to us and assumed by her, we're free to ignore her questionable interpretive powers and luxuriate in an instrument as pleasurable as Sinatra's or Jones's. I'm not just talking subtle force and supple range--those you can pick up in the gym. I love its verve and its reserve, and can't get over the character that grains but never roughens its lissome clarity. A

The Best of the Concert Years [Pablo, 2003]
With minor exceptions not named Cassandra or Sarah (or Carmen or Betty), I find just two jazz singers of consistent interest as melodic improvisers and sonic producers. Ella did sink to shtick on the four albums boiled down here, but on this selection the live format turns a pop interpreter into a jazz musician. She's 54 on the first two tracks and 35 on the next six with little change in clarity or sprightliness. But by the last five, when she's 65, her voice has thickened drastically, and to compensate she overdoes it like her lessers--flatting lines, distorting words, laying on gutturals and vibrato. Listen three times and you'll hang on every phrase. A

[golden]

.

[blackburry]

ESE.

[Iris]

I watched a youtube video of Ella and Tom Jones singing together and I think she is SEI. If you look at the two of them, he is so much more extroverted. She seems more inward in her Fe. (Also, in the second picture posted above, there is a softness to her that is more SEI than ESE, in my opinion.) But I feel bad for typing based on watching videos and looking at pics. There is so much more that I don't know about her. So I will hold off voting.

[HERO]

“ . . . . One of these mornings, you're gonna rise up singing / And you'll spread your wings and you'll take to the sky . . . .



“In my solitude you haunt me with reveries of days gone by / In my solitude you taunt me with memories that never die / I sit in my chair / I'm filled with despair / There's no one could be so sad / With gloom everywhere /I sit and I stare / I know that I'll soon go mad . . . .”



“My story is much too sad to be told / But practically everything leaves me totally cold / The only exception I know is the case when I'm out on a quiet spree, fighting vainly the old ennui / And I suddenly turn and see your fabulous face . . . . I get a kick every time I see you’re standing there before me / I get a kick, though it's clear to me you obviously don't adore me . . . .”



“The day is my enemy, the night my friend/For I'm always so alone/Till the day draws to an end / But when the sun goes down/And the moon comes through/To the monotone of the evening's drone/I'm all alone with you . . . . When dawn comes to waken me/You're never there at all / I know you've forsaken me/Till the shadows fall / But then once again I can dream . . . .”








http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Fi...#Personal_life

‘[Ella] Fitzgerald was also notoriously shy. Trumpet player Mario Bauzá, who played behind Fitzgerald in her early years with Chick Webb, remembered that "she didn't hang out much. When she got into the band, she was dedicated to her music....She was a lonely girl around New York, just kept herself to herself, for the gig." When, later in her career, the Society of Singers named an award after her, Fitzgerald explained, "I don't want to say the wrong thing, which I always do but I think I do better when I sing."’


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnE4qQyle-M

- esound90: “She looks soooo shy even in 1974....”

- Matt3740: “When she speaks it seems terribly awkward. I guess you know that singing makes her more comfortable cause she is the best at it!”


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8C67gnApLs

[Park]

Ella was the greatest in her era, closely followed by Sarah Vaughan.