The court of Queen Ella
THE English music writer and critic Benny Green summed up Ella Fitzgerald perfectly when he wrote: "She is the best equipped vocalist ever to grace the jazz scene. There is to her voice a lilting, lullaby quality which rendered even commonplace material moving."
It seems a fitting epitaph for a singer who at 77 is in declining health after the amputation of both legs last year because of diabetes. The voice which was voted the best in jazz and popular music for 18 consecutive years by the American music magazine Down Beat in unlikely to be ever heard in public again.
But she has left a recorded legacy spanning six decades - which even Frank Sinatra would find hard to match - from the height of the Swing Era, through the bop revolution, the "hit parades" of the post-war 1940s and early 1950s and the definitive songbooks of the greatest American popular composers including George Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, Jerome Kern, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and Harold Arlen.
As John Fordham, jazz writer for The Guardian newspaper in London, so aptly put it, "she bridged the world of pre-rock popular song and the convoluted and unpredictable one of jazz".
In doing so she joined a small coterie of great jazz musicians - Fats Waller and Louis Armstrong were others - who managed to massage the musical tastes of both the jazz and non-jazz audience and this is probably why in some quarters she has been scorned as a slick pop singer. These detractors however, minimise the astonishing control in her diction and superb musicianship.
I can only pity anybody who doesn't like this artist who, at her peak, had no peer in the art of jazz singing with her uncanny sense of time and flawless intonation. If any criticism could be made it was that at times she was too perfect.
She had been a part of jazz impresario Norman Granz's Jazz At The Philharmonic troupe since 1950 but as she was tied to the Decca label, Granz could not release any of her performances recorded live at his concerts. When he became her manager in 1954, Granz set about rectifying this.
The catalyst was the Hollywood movie The Benny Goodman Story. Decca, hoping to emulate the success of the Glenn Miller biopic, wanted to record the soundtrack music from the film. There was one catch - most of the musicians including Stan Getz, Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton and Gene Krupa were signed with Granz.
Granz laid down his terms - Ella could record the 12 songs needed to complete her contract with Decca, then she was his. Decca's Milt Gabler, under pressure to get Goodman album recorded, capitulated. (Ironically, the double soundtrack album was not the success Decca had hoped. Goodman showed what he thought of the music on the album by re-recording music from the soundtrack with hand picked musicians for the Capitol label three months later).
For those who have only heard Ella as the masterful interpreter of ballads and other repertoire from the "Great American Songbook", the magnificent four-CD set, released through Festival Records, of taped live performances originally released on the Pablo label will give them some idea why she was predominant in polls on jazz vocal for many years.
This set is the cream of Ella live, taped by Granz at various JATP concerts from the Nichigeki Theatre in Japan in 1953 to Tokyo's Yoyogi National Stadium in 1983 with stops in between at the Konserhuset in Stockholm (1966), New York City (1967), Nice, France (1971), Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, California (1972), Ronnie Scott's club, London (1974), and the Montreux Jazz Festival (1977 and 1979).
She sings with the elite of jazz's royalty, the orchestras of Duke Ellington and Count Basie, and in many small group settings, with her wonderful accompanist, pianist Tommy Flanagan. The other musicians include the best of the Granz crop: trumpeters Roy Eldridge, Charlie Shavers, Harry "Sweets" Edison and Clark Terry; trombonists Bill Harris, Al Grey and JJ Johnson; tenor saxophonists Ben Webster, Flip Philips, Stan Getz, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Zoot Sims; alto saxophonists Benny Carter and Willie Smith; pianists Oscar Peterson and Jimmy Jones; guitarists Herb Ellis and Joe Pass; bassists Ray Brown and Neils-Henning Orsted Pederson; and drummers JC Heard, Gus Johnson, Ed Thigpen and Louie Bellson.
This is the set that compliments Ella's definitive songbook series for Granz on his Verve label; this is Ella singing for a jazz audience which applauds her warm, liquid ballad style and easy rhythmic flow. There will be no finer vocal album released this year - or next for that matter.
The set charts the change in Ella's voice which by the 1980s had deepened, losing its girlish appeal but not its astonishing control. It was mellow in the lower register with a more pronounced vibrato but the hallmarks of her style, the meticulous regard for time and intonation and a clear diction, were still intact.
There is so much to enjoy on this set that I will only cover a few highlights. The 1953 JATP concert in Tokyo for example in which she judiciously mixes warm ballad performances (Body And Soul, I Got It Bad and My Funny Valentine), with the more extrovert up tempo vehicles Lady Be Good and How High The Moon and her 1946 hit with Louis Armstrong, Frim Fram Sauce, with its brilliant impersonation of Armstrong. It ends with Ella and the JATP All Stars jamming on Perdido, highlighted by Ben Webster's swinging tenor solo.
Her affinity with Ellington's orchestra is shown on Duke's Place (C Jam Blues), taped in Sweden, when she answers trumpeter Cootie Williams muted clarion call with a "dirty" break before improvising words of her own which lead to solos by Johnny Hodges (alto), Jimmy Hamilton (clarinet) and the sinuously warm tenor of Paul Gonsalves.
The tracks from a JATP concert in New York the following year are even better, an inspiring Ella showing the full range of her wondrous talent on a relaxed Don't Be That Way, an emotional You've Changed, a romping It Don't Mean A Thing and a witty Let's Do It.
The climax, a fantastic So Danco Samba, is an object lesson in the art of vocal improvisation. Ella displays her imagination, changing times, timbres and sounds as the equal of a major instrumentalist. When duetting with drummer Sam Woodyard she even imitates drum sounds and patterns.
This is Ella in rare form but then that sums up these four discs. As record companies seek frantically to find the "next Ella", it is interesting to cast one's mind back to the 1950s when the search was on for the "new Bird" after the death of Charlie Parker. There was no new Bird and there will never be another Ella Fitzgerald, an artist beyond category but imbued with the warm feeling of total jazz.
Although I would rate the late Johnny Hartman in the second division of jazz vocalists, his deep, rich voice was eminently suited to ballads and this, combined with his impeccable taste, made him a pleasure to listen to.
Hartman's March 7, 1963 session with tenor giant John Coltrane recorded by Bob Thiele for the Impulse label shows he was quite at home singing with one of the most adventurous groups of its era. One of the highlights of the set reissued by MCA is the way the members of the group - Coltrane, pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones (his brush work is exemplary) complement one another.
In hindsight, this was an ideal pairing, and although the former Dizzy Gillespie vocalist shares the billing on the cover with Coltrane, it's his album.
With only six numbers cut at the session, everyone has time to relax. Hartman's good intonation, wide range and relaxed diction are much in evidence as he intelligently interprets the lyrics of Billy Strayhorn's Lush Life - no mean feat on such a wordy song.
His voice, described by one critic as "nut brown", is relaxed as he caresses the lyrics of such romantic ballads as They Say It's Wonderful, My One And Only Love and You Are Too Beautiful.
As for Coltrane, he shows what a master balladeer he could be when in the mood. His obligattos behind Hartman are lyrical (shades of Lester Young) and his solos, tasteful.
One for the wee small hours with coffee, liqueurs and the appropriate company.
Mildred Bailey made some of the great vocal records in jazz. Four of them are on this set released by MCA as part of its Decca jazz series - the legendary 1935 session which included such greats as pianist Teddy Wilson, trumpeter Bunny Berigan and alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges.
Bailey's small voice, warm and flawlessly pitched, couldn't have been in better company than on this memorable date. The four numbers, Willow Tree, Honeysuckle Rose, Squeeze Me and Down-Hearted Blues, should be in every jazz collection.
There is much to admire about Bailey singing - her exquisite phrasing, the loveliness of her voice and the rocking beat. But be warned, her greatest recordings from 1932 onwards are on the Vocalion and Brunswick labels, the property of Columbia (wholeheartedly recommended is the Colunmbia/Legacy set Red Norvo Featuring Mildred Bailey CK 53424 with some of her best recordings).
Four classic tracks does not a CD purchase make. Even Mildred Bailey cannot overcome the dull arrangements of the four tracks with a pedestrian 1931 Casa Loma Orchestra.
And although the songs from the post 1941 recordings include such classic material as Georgia On My Mind, Lover Come Back To Me and More Than You Know, the backing groups are uninspired. For Bailey completists only.
Next month I shall review some of the many fine saxophone CDs, both reissues and new releases.
Kevin Jones
The Concert Years
Ella Fitzgerald
Festival D89833 (Pablo 4PACD-4414-2).
John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman
Impulse GRD-157
The Rockin' Chair Lady (1931-1950)
Mildred Bailey
MCA/GRP (Decca Jazz Series) GRD-644.
Kevin Jones is jazz writer for The Australian newspaper. His radio program, The Sound Of Jazz, has been broadcast on 2MBS-FM in Sydney since 1975.