1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 24. Ella Fitzgerald – Sings the Gershwin Song Book (1959)

Dimery gives us a mammoth to finish the Fifties with – the streaming version is three hours long and listed as six “discs”, although the Wikipedia entry for this album is limited to four discs, and the last one is Nelson Riddle rather than Ella Fitzgerald. 

Plus, we return to where we started. Smooth vocal stylings of Great American Songbook tunes to a Nelson Riddle big band backdrop. Although here I think Fitzgerald (a) has an easier voice than Sinatra to listen to and (b) at least here she mixes up fast and slow tunes so we don’t get the relentless sadness of In The Wee Small Hours. Plus, since these are George and Ira Gershwin tunes, the lyrics are always clever.  

Not to take away from Fitzgerald, but it’s a shame that the decade ends how it began. The jazz albums show a progress in music, and perhaps there’s a sense of the blending of folk and country into rock ‘n’ roll, but otherwise it feels more like the 1950s laid the groundwork for later innovations in music. It’s perhaps not a fair assessment, since Dimery begins in the middle of the decade and only gives it 24 songs out of 1001, less than 3% of the total when, if divisions were equal, each decade should get around 133 albums (with half that for the currently half-way through 2020s). Even with half the Fifties, they ought to get 65 albums or so. That said, given that the range of musical genres keeps expanding, I can see why the weighting would be otherwise. 

As for Ella Fitzgerald, and this album in particular, I have to admire her desire to record the entirety of the “Great American Songbook”, with other albums dedicated to e.g. Cole Porter. Her voice is smooth as silk and I can see why she’s celebrated. For me, it’s perhaps a little too perfected, there’s no timbre there that you could instantly pick out Fitzgerald from other similar-sounding singers (like, say, Alma Cogan’s little rasp or Karen Carpenters deep richness). From what I’d understood, I was expecting something a bit more bluesy or jazzy, and there’s only really one track on here that does that – the fun and somewhat suggestive Slap That Bass. Plus, I don’t get much from Nelson Riddle’s arrangements, which makes the whole thing an exercise in sounding “nice” rather than moving. That said, one “side” of this album is purely Riddle instrumentals that sound like they ought to be the soundtrack to a heist caper starring Frank Sinatra and Sophia Loren (called, perhaps “It Happened in Monterey”). Very specific there, Simon. 

[Edit: Yes, I know AI is a curse on mankind, but the latest version of Google Copilot has got quite good at producing things that aren't absolute crud, and for me is a fun way of dragging things out of my visual imagination. I had trouble with the prompts with this one - it didn't seem to like the combination of Sophia Loren and casino imagery - I think it kept trying to draw Loren in a low-cut gown and then scaring itself with her cleavage. Which is where Frank's looking, I think.]