…in no particular order & with my favorite recordings…

Number Two: Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald 1917-1996

The Ella Fitzgerald Song Books were a series of eight studio albums released in irregular intervals between 1956 and 1964. The eight albums covered the Songbooks of Cole Porter (1956), Rodgers & Hart (1956), Duke Ellington (1957), Irving Berlin (1958), George and Ira Gershwin (1959), Harold Arlen (1961), Jerome Kern (1963), and Johnny Mercer (1964). The full collection is available on Amazon.

The Complete Ella Fitzgerald Songbooks on Verve

They are considered a cornerstone of 20th century recorded popular music, and as a whole, represent some of the finest interpretations of the greater part of the musical canon known as the Great American Songbook. Two of my favorite songs are “Night and Day” and “I love Paris” by Cole Porter.

I loved the simply evocative pen drawing on the cover. My father and mother were great jazz connoisseurs and they had an outstanding collection. Verve, Blue Note, Mercury…each label had its own artists and the covers of those albums were full of promise and allure…more on my obsession with record covers in a later post!