Ella Fitzgerald: The Decca Years (6 of 9)



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		The DECCA Years, Vol. One, 1935 - 1938 featuring CHICK WEBB AND HIS ORCHESTRA Liner notes by Will Friedwald PAGE 1 \| 2 \| 3 \| 4 \| 5 \| 6 \| 7 \| 8 \| 9 \| Track Listing
		`Appropriately, the records Fitzgerald made as "Ella Fitzgerald and her Savoy Eight,"` were also dance-directed, being made with a contingent from the Webb band including the leader; notably, she doesn't pull rank and insist on singing the first choruses on every Savoy Eight side. While with the full band on "Swing Song," "Mr. Rhythm" "Just a Jitterbug" and others, she serves as a intermediary between audiences and the band itself, both introducing and inspiring soloists in a way that Ted Lewis and Cab Calloway would have given anything to be able to do. Fitzgerald not only kept perfectly in time, but long before she reached 20 Fitzgerald had so much command of the beat she was no less of a joy for Webb's sidemen to play with than for the Savoy lindy hoppers to dance to - as well as for us to listen to god knows how many Ella Fitzgeralds later. She already had near-perfect intonation as well, easily the best of any vocal artist ever in the jazz or popular arena, although greater opportunities to show off that aspect of her chops would come later. Early on, however, she goes well beyond the boundaries of what was expected of your average swing band canary. "Mr. Paganini," "Organ Grinder's Swing" and "Just a Simple Melody" introduce Ella Fitzgerald, the greatest scat singer of all time. Inspired by the legendary Louis Armstrong (listen to "Love and Kisses" and "Shine"), the obscure Leo Watson (particularly on "Organ Grinder") and the neglected Martha Raye (especially in dance treatments of two Raye movie features, "Paganini" and "Vote for Mr. Rhythm"), Fitzgerald at once synthesizes the best of their accomplishments and transcends them. If Webb saw in Fitzgerald a way to attract attention to the band without sacrificing its musical standards - he could have starting blowing water into a straw or drumming in a professor's cap and gown - Fitzgerald herself needed an extra-musical gimmick. She seems to have decided on her youth itself, and the primary association audiences would have of her, before bebop and the songbook series, would be of swinging nursery rhymes. The trend was already in the air, in fact Leo Watson had incorporated such material as quote sources in his extended scat solos, but Fitzgerald consolidated it. This site rescued by media.org.