Ella And Basie! (Remastered) Ella Fitzgerald & Count Basie

• 1 Honeysuckle Rose 02:43
• 2 'Deed I Do 02:46
• 3 Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall 03:22
• 4 Them There Eyes 05:09
• 5 Dream A Little Dream Of Me 04:08
• 6 Tea For Two 03:21
• 7 Satin Doll 03:21
• 8 I'm Beginning To See The Light 04:07
• 9 Shiny Stockings 03:35
• 10 My Last Affair 03:19
• 11 Ain't Misbehavin' 03:15
• 12 On The Sunny Side Of The Street 03:06
• Total Runtime 42:12

Info for Ella And Basie! (Remastered)

„In July 1963, singer Ella Fitzgerald and pianist Count Basie's orchestra entered the studio for their first full-length recording session as a collective. They produced a gem for both veteran jazz fans and novices. The album features both artists in top swinging form and it is concise enough to serve as an introduction to those just beginning to explore the Basie or Fitzgerald catalogs.

Ella and Basie! presents the band in the role of accompanist and the group performs its task with the utmost gusto and musicality. Quincy Jones' crisp arrangements don't give individual musicians many soloing opportunities. Rather, they call for precise dynamic shifts and delicate interplay between reeds and brass, highlighting some of the musical areas over which the Basie band reigned supreme. The ensemble drops from a screaming forte to a simmering piano with ease on tunes such as the melancholy 'Satin Doll' and jumping 'Tea for Two.' A classic rhythm section of guitarist Freddie Green, bassist Buddy Catlett, drummer Sonny Payne and Basie himself heighten the energy of the band by remaining laid back yet explosive—the latter being a consequence of Payne's work behind the kit—throughout the album, which consists of a collection of down-to-mid tempo standards.

Fitzgerald, in her prime on this recording, contributes to the sense of excitement by interspersing brief snippets of scatting with boldly sung lyrics. On 'Honeysuckle Rose,' the album's opener and most energetic tune, she takes her longest 'solo,' a playful, relatively uncomplicated endeavor, intertwining with Basie's sparse comping, that transitions smoothly into a sax solo and an infectious shout-chorus finale. On 'Them There Eyes,' Fitzgerald trades melodies with trumpeter Joe Newman to an obviously arranged but nevertheless swinging affect.

In contrast to her performance on the album's more fiery tracks, Fitzgerald has the opportunity to croon on the ballad 'Dream a Little Dream of Me,' which features Basie on organ as well as a short lyrical trombone solo by Benny Powell. Similarly, she takes up a more subdued and forlorn tone on 'My Last Affair.'

Other high points of the album include a well developed arrangement of 'Shiny Stockings' and a dirty shuffle, 'On The Sunny Side Of The Street.' The 2004 CD re-release includes two alternate takes of 'My Last Affair' and four takes of an additional tune, 'Robbin's Nest.'

While Ella and Basie! doesn't individually showcase the many talented musicians in the Count Basie Orchestra, it provides an example of a singer and a band at their most refined levels of musicianship. None of the songs are long or venture into the abstract; this album is jazz in its most primal form. ' (Thomas Carroll, AllAboutJazz)

Ella Fitzgerald, vocals
William „Count“ Basie, piano
Freddie Green, guitar
Frank Foster, flute, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone
Frank Wess, flute, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone
Eric Dixon, flute, tenor saxophone
Marshall Royal, clarinet, alto saxophone
Charlie Fowlkes, baritone saxophone
Flip Ricard, trumpet, trombone
Don Rader, trumpet
Joe Newman, trumpet
Al Aarons, trumpet
Sonny Cohn, trumpet
Grover Mitchell, trombone
Henry Coker, trombone
Urbie Green, trombone
Benny Powell, trombone
Sonny Payne, drums

Produced by Norman Granz

Digitally remastered

Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996)
was, along with Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday, one of the most important vocalists to emerge from the big-band era. Her style is marked by a sunny outlook, a girlish innocence, and a virtuoso command of her voice.

Fitzgerald was born out of wedlock in Newport News, Virginia, to a laundress mother and a father who disappeared when she was three years old. Along with her mother and her mother’s new boyfriend who functioned as a stepfather, she soon moved to Yonkers, New York, where she began her schooling. Around the third grade she started dancing, a pursuit that became almost an obsession. In 1932, when she was fifteen, her mother died suddenly of a heart attack. Her stepfather treated her badly, but an aunt took the teenager to live with her in Harlem. This arrangement did not last long; Fitzgerald ran away in 1934 to live on the streets. Late that year she won a talent contest at the Apollo Theater; she had entered as a dancer, but nervousness caused her to sing instead. Several months later she joined drummer Chick Webb’s big band, where she mostly sang novelties like 'Vote for Mr. Rhythm'. In 1938 she recorded 'A-Tisket, A-Tasket', her own adaptation of a turn-of-the-century nursery rhyme, which took the country by storm and eventually sold a million copies. When Webb died in 1939 the band’s management installed Fitzgerald as leader.

In 1942 the band broke up and Fitzgerald became a single act, touring with various other popular names of the day. She also became interested in scat singing and the newly emerging style known as bebop, and in 1945 she recorded a landmark version of 'Flying Home.' Several tours with the Dizzy Gillespie band also contributed to her assimilation of the bebop style.

In the late 1940s Fitzgerald began to tour with the Jazz at the Philharmonic troupe, working with such leading musicians as saxophonist Lester Young, trumpeter Roy Eldridge, pianist Oscar Peterson, and bassist Ray Brown, to whom she was married for four years. JATP impresario Norman Granz became increasingly influential in her career, and in 1953 he became her manager.

Three years after that he became her record producer as well, recording her on his own Verve label. He wasted little time in having Fitzgerald record a double album of Cole Porter songs. Fitzgerald made many wonderful albums for Verve in the following decade, but the six songbooks occupy a special place in her discography. They were instrumental in expanding Fitzgerald’s appeal beyond that of a 'jazz singer' and creating a demand for her in venues not usually open to jazz artists.

For die-hard jazz fans, though, the well-polished jewels of the songbook series lack the raw energy of Fitzgerald’s live performances. Happily, Granz released several landmark concert albums by her as well. Especially exciting was a 1960 Berlin concert, which featured an electrifying performance of an impromptu take on 'Mack the Knife,' which became a Top 30 single. Fitzgerald usually performed with a trio or quartet, but there were also appearances with larger groups, such as the Duke Ellington and Count Basie orchestras. By the 1960s Fitzgerald had become wealthy enough to retire, but the love of performing drove her on — she appeared regularly until just a couple of years before her death in 1996. Sidemen came and went, but except when health problems intervened she performed as much as humanly possible, sometimes singing concerts in two different cities in one day. Source: Verve Music (Phil Bailey). Excerpted from Ken Burns’ Jazz: The Definitive Ella Fitzgerald

This album contains no booklet.