Sunday, October 8, 2023

Ella Fitzgerald - The Last Decca Years 1949-1954

Styles: Vocal
Year: 1999
File: MP3@128K/s
Time: 62:43
Size: 63,1 MB
Art: Front

(2:41) 1. In The Evening (When The Sun Goes Down)
(3:10) 2. Basin Street Blues
(3:01) 3. Solid As A Rock
(3:19) 4. I've Got The World On A String
(3:08) 5. Dream A Little Dream Of Me
(3:14) 6. Can Anyone Explain?
(3:12) 7. Because Of Rain
(3:17) 8. I Don't Want To Take A Chance
(2:51) 9. There Never Was A Baby Like My Baby
(3:22) 10. Give A Little, Get A Little
(2:54) 11. A Guy Is A Guy
(2:26) 12. Goody, Goody
(5:13) 13. You'll Have To Swing It (Mr. Paganini) (Pt. 1 & 2)
(3:16) 14. Early Autumn
(2:57) 15. Angel Eyes
(3:05) 16. Prevue
(2:53) 17. Careless
(2:50) 18. Blue Lou
(2:55) 19. Melancholy Me
(2:50) 20. Lullaby Of Birdland

Ella Fitzgerald's tenure at Decca Records has been criticized, especially in comparison to her subsequent stay at Verve, for the mediocrity of the material she recorded and her late-blooming maturity as a singer. By selecting 20 tracks from among the sessions she did late in her Decca period with arranger/conductor Sy Oliver, this album makes the best of that era, though the results still do not rank with Fitzgerald's later triumphs.

The punchy Oliver style, heard in everything from the works of Jimmie Lunceford to those of Tommy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra, has a Dixieland flavor, especially in its blaring horns, that Fitzgerald seems to find stimulating. But the quality of the material is still the key: when singer and arranger have something like "Basin Street Blues" to work with, they do fine (Fitzgerald even breaks into her first recorded Louis Armstrong imitation), and there are enough such examples "I've Got the World on a String," "Angel Eyes," "Blue Lou," and Fitzgerald's scat showcase "You'll Have to Swing It (Mr. Paganini)" to raise the album to worthwhile status, especially when you throw in a duet session with Armstrong himself on "Dream a Little Dream of Me" and "Can Anyone Explain?."

But there are also many second-rate songs that Fitzgerald dutifully sings as though they were something better, and that keeps this album from countering the usual impression of the Decca years.By William Ruhlmann.https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-last-decca-years-1949-1954-mw0000602836

The Last Decca Years 1949-1954

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