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- Verified Buyer
This is just simply superb. It was a chance remark on some radio programme that told me that the really essential Gershwin is to be found in the songs. My own acquaintance with him was a matter of Porgy and Bess, the Rhapsody in Blue and the Concerto in F, so I hunted for a good collection of the songs, and I don't believe I could have done better than I have.This disc contains 22 items, apparently an anthology. For a moment I was about to list some examples, but there were so many candidates for the spotlight that my list was threatening to be 22 items long. The recording was done in 1959 and I don't see anything about remastering, digital transfers or any of that stuff, but it is just great as it is. The recording of Nelson Riddle and his Orchestra is tactful, their playing is relaxed and natural, but the prominence is accorded to the voice, and what a voice. I can hardly believe that this disc is not more of a hit than it seems to be. George Gershwin had to struggle to get the studios to believe that it was hits and not highbrow music that he wanted to write, but he got away with it in his short life and we are all the gainers. There is not one dud here, whether we are talking the music or whether we mean the words. The range of expression is not enormous, but in this study of a composer, a writer, and above all a singer, greater range is not what I would have wanted: I could have done with more of the same.Ira Gershwin said that he never knew how good their songs were until he heard Ella sing them. Literally, I can't imagine better. Just on the technical level her control is complete and absolute, whether on a quiet high note, or on steady sustained notes, or in her magnificent contralto. There is not one note that is sung in any strident or disagreeable way. However the technique is at the service of the expression, and this whole disc is a study in soulful beauty and emotional depth. In his 2010 liner note James Murray refers to the talent contests that Ella had won in her late teens, but he doesn't give me any clue as to how she managed to develop artistic maturity and technical perfection in the way she has. In passing I might quote Cole Porter 'My, what marvellous diction that girl has.' The words to the songs are not provided, but we don't need them, so clear are they all, and I wonder when if ever I could have said that before.It doesn't look as if anyone keen to obtain this disc is going to be trampled in the rush. Without disrespect to any other artists, music lovers are missing something that I have been lucky to get hold of through a sheer fluke.
