Smorgasbord Music Column 2022 – William Price King meets the Jazz Icons – Ella Fitzgerald Part Five – Live Performances

It is eight years since William Price King joined Smorgasbord to share music across the genres. It is six years since we have featured the icons and delighted to showcase them again in 2022.

This is the final performance in the Ella Fitzgerald story and today it is time to pay tribute to this extraordinary artist by showcasing some of her live performances.

Ella’s health had been failing for some time and in 1986 she underwent quintuple bypass surgery. She also required a new heart valve and was diagnosed with diabetes that had resulted in a deterioration of her eyesight. The rumour mill went into overdrive and pronounced that the Queen of Jazz would never sing again.

Ella however, yet again proved what a true performer that she was and returned to the stage with a punishing concert tour. Her last live concert was at Carnegie Hall in 1991 which was the 26^th time she had performed at this prestigious venue. In this final tribute to this astonishing first lady of song we are going to feature some of her live performances. Here is What’s Going On (Renaldo “Obie” Benson and Marvin Gaye) at the Newport Jazz Festival 1973 at Carnegie Hall.

Ella recorded over 200 albums in her career and won fourteen Grammy Awards, achieving the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1967. She also received the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Medal of Honor Award, The National Medal of Art and the Presidential Medal of Freedom presented by President George Bush. In 1990 she received an honorary doctorate of Music from Harvard University.

Here is April in Paris (Vernon Duke and E.Y. Harburg) Live at Jazz Pour Tous, Brussels, Belgium, 1957

Ella Fitzgerald was not only a musical performer but an advocate for civil rights and women and children’s causes. She never forgot her own start in life and gave generously to organisations for disadvantaged young people. This commitment to contributing to welfare was one of the reasons that Ella felt compelled to keep performing even when her health began to fail. Here is an example of that ‘Show must go on’ attitude that was her hallmark.. Performing on the Sammy Davis 1989 60th Anniversary Celebration

ELLA FITZGERALD CHARITABLE FOUNDATION

The Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation was created and funded in 1993 by Ella Fitzgerald, the First Lady of Song, in order to fulfil her desires to use the fruits of her success to help people of all races, cultures and beliefs. Ella hoped to make their lives more rewarding, and she wanted to foster a love of reading, as well as a love of music. In addition, she hoped to provide assistance to the at-risk and disadvantaged members of our communities – assistance that would enable them to achieve a better quality of life. The Board of Directors of the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation seeks to continue Ella Fitzgerald’s goals by making charitable grants serving four major areas of interest:

1 creating educational and other opportunities for children
2 fostering a love and knowledge of music, including assistance to students of music
3 the provision of health care, food, shelter and counseling to those in need
4 specific areas of medical care and research with an emphasis on Diabetes, vision problems and heart disease

Her contribution to the world of music was recognised in 1987 when President Ronald Reagan awarded her the National Medal of Arts and it was one of her most treasured moments.Ella had performed at the White House and here is a photograph taken in 1981 with President Reagan

The USA was not the only nation to recognise her work and France awarded Ella the Commander of Arts and Letters award in 1990. Here is one of Ella’s performances, (Live At Teatro Sistina, Rome, Italy / 1958) Midnight Sun (Lional Hampton and Sonny Burke)Ella Fitzgerald – Topic

Apart from Carnegie Hall, Ella travelled the world and performed in Europe at the most prestigious venues including the Royal Albert Hall in London, several major events in Germany including at The Musikhalle in Hamburg, the Palais des Congres in Paris, Teatro Manzoni in Milan, Circo Massimo in Rome and yearly at the Montreux Jazz Festival. She delighted audiences in Canada, Belgium, Lebanon, The Netherlands, Hungary, Sweden, Poland, Finland, Serbia and Japan. Here is one Ella live in Berlin in 1968. For Once in My Life (Ron Miller and Orlando Murden)

What a legacy this incredible woman left behind not just in the songs and music but in her contribution to society and the welfare of others.

Ella died at her home on June 15, 1996 age 79 and to end this tribute to the First Lady of Song one of the best versions of Cry Me a River (Arthur Hamilton).

Goodnight Ella.

Join us next week for another series in the celebration of iconic musicians of the last century.

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Ella Fitzgerald

I hope you have enjoyed this tribute to one of the icons of jazz and will join us again next week for the next part of the Ella Fitzgerald Story.

William Price King is an American jazz singer, crooner, and composer.

His interest in music began at an early age when he studied piano and clarinet in high school. At Morehouse College in Atlanta where he grew up, he sang in the Glee Club and studied classical music. After graduation he went off to the Yale School of Music where he earned a Masters degree. From there he journeyed to New York where he created a jazz trio ‘Au Naturel’ which performed in some of the hottest venues in Manhattan including gigs on Broadway and the famous ‘Rainbow Room.’ These gigs opened doors for performances in Montreal and a European tour.

While touring Europe he met a lovely French lady, Jeanne Maïstre, who, a year later became his wife. King left the group ‘Au Naturel’ and settled in the south of France where he started a new life on the French Riviera, opening his own music school – the “Price King Ecole Internationale de Chant.” He has had the pleasure over the years of seeing many of his students excel as singers on a professional level, and some going on to become national celebrities. He continues to coach young singers today, in his spare time.

Blog– IMPROVISATION – William Price King on Tumblr – Buy William’s music: William Price King iTunes – Facebook – William Price King – Twitter – @wpkofficial
Regular Venue – Cave Wilson

 

Thank you for dropping and as always William would love to receive your feedback… thanks Sally.

Smorgasbord Music Column 2022 – William Price King meets the Jazz Icons – Ella Fitzgerald Part Four – The Collaborations

It is eight years since William Price King joined Smorgasbord to share music across the genres. It is six years since we have featured the icons and delighted to showcase them again in 2022.

Last week in the Ella Fitzgerald story we discovered the delights of the eight Songbooks that Ella recorded up to 1964. This week a brief look at her appearances on the large and small screens and also her collaborations with some of the best performers of the day.

Ella Fitzgerald was an exceptional performer and this did cross over into both television and film roles in the 50s. Her manager Norman Granz was able to negotiate a role for Ella in the Jack Webb 1955 jazz film Pete Kelly’s Blues alongside Janet Leigh and Peggy Lee. This was her first film since 1942 and Ella was thrilled by the opportunity..

Unfortunately the critics where not so thrilled with the film but despite this The New York Times did offer some comfort to Ella and her fans:

“About five minutes (out of ninety-five) suggest the picture this might have been. Take the ingenious prologue … [or] take the fleeting scenes when the wonderful Ella Fitzgerald, allotted a few spoken lines, fills the screen and sound track with her strong mobile features and voice.”

At the time leading roles for African American actresses were difficult to find, but Ella appeared from time to time in cameos for St. Louis Blues in 1958 for example and on television in the 1980s drama The White Shadow.

However, she did make many guest performances with the established musical shows of the day including with one of her favourite singers Frank Sinatra. Also Andy Williams, Pat Boone, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin and Mel Tormé.

She was a frequent guest on The Ed Sullivan Show and here is a wonderful performance of “Three Little Maids from School” from The Mikado and Lover Come Back to Me alongside Joan Sutherland and Dinah Shore. vintage video clips  

Ella was very popular with producers when it came to television commercials and one of her longest running was for Memorex tapes. Here is a short compilation to remind us not just of her amazing voice but also those days when we all thought that cassette tapes where the last word in technology! In the original advert Ella sang and shattered a glass, when the tape was played back the recording also broke the glass, asking: “Is it live, or is it Memorex?”

The Collaborations.

There is no doubt that Ella Fitzgerald performed and often recorded with the finest musicians and singers of the day. These included Bill Kenney & The Ink Spots, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.

Out of the seven songs that Ella recorded with the Ink Spots, four reached the top of the pop charts including “I’m Making Believe” for Decca Records in 1944. With hundreds of thousands of servicemen and women over in Europe this song was hugely popular and reached number one in the chart.

The three Verve Studio albums with Louis Armstrong also did very well including the last album that featured the music from the Gershwin musical Porgy and Bess. Ella also recorded with Louis on a number of records for Decca in the 50s.

Her collaboration with Count Basie pleased the critics and her 1963 album Ella and Basie! is considered to be one of the best. Here is one of the classics from the album “Ain’t Misbehavin’ ” written by Harry Brooks, Andy Razaf and Fats Waller

Ella and Count Basie also collaborated on the 1972 album Jazz at Santa Monica Civic ’72, and on the 1979 albums Digital III at Montreaux, A Classy Pair and A Perfect Match.

Last week we covered the Duke Ellington Songbook but Ella and the ‘Duke‘ also worked together on the 1966 album Ella and Duke at the Cote D’Azur, and in Sweden for The Stockholm Concert 1966. Their 1965 album Ella at Duke’s Palace is also extremely well received. Here is a video of one of the live performances from Stockholm. “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love)”.

One of the stars that Ella would have dearly loved to collaborate with on an album was Frank Sinatra. Despite several memorable performances by them on stage and in television specials, that was never to happen. A great shame, although thankfully we do have recorded magic available on YouTube to share, including this wonderful performance of “Can’t we be friends”.

One of Ella’s most successful joint collaborations was with Count Basie in 1974 for a series of concerts at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas which was so popular and when they transferred to Broadway for two weeks in September 1975 the show grossed a million dollars in two weeks.

Join us next week for the final part of the amazing and wonderful life of Ella Fitzgerald with some more outstanding performances.

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wikipedia
Ella Fitzgerald

I hope you have enjoyed this tribute to one of the icons of jazz and will join us again next week for the next part of the Ella Fitzgerald Story.

William Price King is an American jazz singer, crooner, and composer.

His interest in music began at an early age when he studied piano and clarinet in high school. At Morehouse College in Atlanta where he grew up, he sang in the Glee Club and studied classical music. After graduation he went off to the Yale School of Music where he earned a Masters degree. From there he journeyed to New York where he created a jazz trio ‘Au Naturel’ which performed in some of the hottest venues in Manhattan including gigs on Broadway and the famous ‘Rainbow Room.’ These gigs opened doors for performances in Montreal and a European tour.

While touring Europe he met a lovely French lady, Jeanne Maïstre, who, a year later became his wife. King left the group ‘Au Naturel’ and settled in the south of France where he started a new life on the French Riviera, opening his own music school – the “Price King Ecole Internationale de Chant.” He has had the pleasure over the years of seeing many of his students excel as singers on a professional level, and some going on to become national celebrities. He continues to coach young singers today, in his spare time.

Blog– IMPROVISATION – William Price King on Tumblr – Buy William’s music: William Price King iTunes – Facebook – William Price King – Twitter – @wpkofficial
Regular Venue – Cave Wilson

 

Thank you for dropping and as always William would love to receive your feedback… thanks Sally.

Smorgasbord Music Column 2022 – William Price King meets the Jazz Icons – Ella Fitzgerald Part Three – The Eight Songbooks

It is eight years since William Price King joined Smorgasbord to share music across the genres. It is six years since we have featured the icons and delighted to showcase them again in 2022.

This week in the Ella Fitzgerald story a slight change of format as we look at the eight Songbooks that Ella recorded showcasing the best music of the 20^th century.. Enjoy the concert of the most iconic songs of the era.

From 1956 to 1964 Ella Fitzgerald under the banner of the Verve record label recorded eight of her very popular ‘Songbooks’ beginning with Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook, which was also her first album with the label.

These Songbooks are amongst the most well-known of her many albums and the songs ranged from the popular Jazz standards to lesser known songs from the composers and lyricists featured and also some cross over for her non-jazz fans.

The Cole Porter Songbook was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000 in an award that recognised excellence in the previous 25 years. Here is the fabulous I Get a Kick Outta of You…

The second Songbook followed quickly in 1956, Ella Fitzgerald sings the Rodgers & Hart Songbook. Accompanied by a studio orchestra conducted by Buddy Bregman.. The four-sided Songbook was filled with many popular tracks including Have You Met Miss Jones, With A Song In My Heart, and My Funny Valentine..

Here is The Lady is a Tramp…

“Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook” in 1957 was the only Songbook on which the composer she interpreted played with her. Duke Ellington and his long-time collaborator Billy Strayhorn both appeared on exactly half the set’s 38 tracks and wrote two new pieces of music for the album: Tracks include Prelude To A Kiss, Take The A Train and Don’t Get Around Much Anymore. Duke Ellington composed and performed all the music with lyricists including Irving Mills, Johnny Hodges and Harry James. Here is Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.

The next Songbook in the series was in 1958 Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Irving Berlin Songbook. A studio album with music arranged and conducted by Paul Weston. It featured some of Irving Berlin’s most popular work and included Let’s Face The Music And Dance, Puttin’ On The Ritz, and Cheek to Cheek.. Here is Alexander’s Ragtime Band…Ella Fitzgerald – Topic

 

The next in the series is Ella Fitzgerald sings George and Ira Gershwin Songbook arranged and conducted by Nelson Riddle. Some of the wonderful tracks included Someone To Watch Over Me, Strike Up The Band, I’ve Got A Crush On You.

The sixth Songbook came along two years later in 1961 Ella Sings the Harold Arlen Songbook another studio album and this was the only time that Ella worked with Billy May. Tracks included Stormy Weather, lyrics by Ted Koehler, That Old Black Magic, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, and It’s Only A Paper Moon by E.Y Harburg and Billy Rose.

Number seven in the series was Ella Sings The Jerome Kern Songbook in 1963 again with Nelson Riddle..Tracks included All The Things You Are by Oscar Hammerstein and The Way You Look Tonight by Dorothy Fields.

The last in the eight Songbooks in 1964 was Ella Fitzgerald Sings Johnny Mercer in 1964 another arranged and conducted by Nelson Riddle including Too Marvelous For Words lyrics by Richard A Whiting and When A Man Loves A Woman lyrics by Bernie Hanighen and Gordon Jenkins.

The Songbook series ended up becoming the singer’s most critically acclaimed and commercially successful work, and probably her most significant offering to American culture.

The New York Times wrote in 1996, “These albums were among the first pop records to devote such serious attention to individual songwriters, and they were instrumental in establishing the pop album as a vehicle for serious musical exploration.”

You can enjoy all the songbooks on one album: The complete Ella Fitzgerald Song Books

Additional Sources
wikipedia
Ella Fitzgerald

I hope you have enjoyed this tribute to one of the icons of jazz and will join us again next week for the next part of the Ella Fitzgerald Story.

William Price King is an American jazz singer, crooner, and composer.

His interest in music began at an early age when he studied piano and clarinet in high school. At Morehouse College in Atlanta where he grew up, he sang in the Glee Club and studied classical music. After graduation he went off to the Yale School of Music where he earned a Masters degree. From there he journeyed to New York where he created a jazz trio ‘Au Naturel’ which performed in some of the hottest venues in Manhattan including gigs on Broadway and the famous ‘Rainbow Room.’ These gigs opened doors for performances in Montreal and a European tour.

While touring Europe he met a lovely French lady, Jeanne Maïstre, who, a year later became his wife. King left the group ‘Au Naturel’ and settled in the south of France where he started a new life on the French Riviera, opening his own music school – the “Price King Ecole Internationale de Chant.” He has had the pleasure over the years of seeing many of his students excel as singers on a professional level, and some going on to become national celebrities. He continues to coach young singers today, in his spare time.

Blog– IMPROVISATION – William Price King on Tumblr – Buy William’s music: William Price King iTunes – Facebook – William Price King – Twitter – @wpkofficial
Regular Venue – Cave Wilson

 

Thank you for dropping and as always William would love to receive your feedback… thanks Sally.

Smorgasbord Music Column 2022 – William Price King meets the Jazz Icons – Ella Fitzgerald Part Two – the 1940s -Oh Lady Be Good

It is eight years since William Price King joined Smorgasbord to share music across the genres. It is six years since we have featured the icons and delighted to showcase them again in 2022.

Welcome to the second part of the Ella Fitzgerald story.  Ella rightly holds the crown as Queen of Jazz and her contribution to music was mirrored by her influence not only for women’s rights but also the civil rights movement during the 50s and 60s. Last week we looked at her early life and performances and now we move into the 40s and 50s.

The story continues…

Last week we looked at Ella’s early start in life that was filled with many challenges. However, following her win in a talent contest in 1935 and her subsequent collaboration with drummer and band leader Chick Webb, her career went from strength to strength.

The New York Times later wrote that Chick was, “reluctant to sign her….because she was gawky and unkempt, a ‘diamond in the rough’.” But, he offered her the opportunity to test with his band when they played a dance at Yale University. She began singing regularly with his orchestra throughout 1935 at Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom and Ella recorded several hit songs with them, including “Love and Kisses” But it was her 1938 expanded version of the 19^th century nursery rhyme, “A Tiskit a Taskit,” a song she co-wrote with Al Feldman (later known as Van Alexander) that brought her wide public acclaim. Some One Ella Fitzgerald  

Chick Webb died in June 1939, and his band was renamed Ella and her Famous Orchestra with Ella taking on the role of nominal band leader. She recorded nearly 150 songs with the orchestra before it broke up in 1942 and Ella began her solo career.

Her first signing was with the well-established Decca label and Milt Gabler became her manager. It was a time of amazing productivity within the Jazz industry and Ella recorded with some of the most popular performers of the day including Bill Kinney & the Ink Spots.

They recorded ‘I’m Making Believe” and “Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall”. Both of these recordings reached #1 on the US Pop Charts. Fitzgerald teamed up with The Ink Spots again in 1945 to record “I’m Beginning to See the Light” and “That’s the Way It Is”.

Milt Gabler brought Ella together with Jazz Impresario and producer Norman Granz and she performed regularly with his Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts. Norman would eventually take over as Ella’s manager and remained so to the end of her career; she remained at Decca until signing for Verve Records the label that Norman Granz created around her. In the meantime she would record many hits for Decca in the company of the great musicians and singers of the day including Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Billie Holiday and Dizzy Gillespie.

With the demise of the Swing era and the decline of the great touring big bands, a major change in jazz music occurred. The advent of bebop led to new developments in Fitzgerald’s vocal style, influenced by her work with Dizzy Gillespie’s big band. Dizzy was a Jazz trumpeter, bandleader and composer who together with Charlie Parker became a huge influencer in the development of bebop and modern jazz.

It was in this period that Fitzgerald started including scat singing as a major part of her performance repertoire. In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. Scat singing is a difficult technique that requires singers with the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms using the voice as an instrument rather than a speaking medium.

Her 1945 scat recording of “Flying Home” arranged by Vic Schoen and recorded with Dizzie Gillespie and Charlie Parker, would later be described by The New York Times as “one of the most influential vocal jazz records of the decade….Where other singers, most notably Louis Armstrong, had tried similar improvisation, no one before Miss Fitzgerald employed the technique with such dazzling inventiveness.”

Her bebop recording of “Oh, Lady Be Good” in 1947, written in 1924 by George and Ira Gershwin for the Broadway show of the same name, was similarly popular and increased her reputation as one of the leading jazz vocalists.

On the touring circuit it was well-known that Ella’s manager felt very strongly about civil rights and required equal treatment for his musicians, regardless of their color. Norman refused to accept any type of discrimination at hotels, restaurants or concert halls, even when they travelled to the Deep South. Once, while in Dallas touring for the Philharmonic, a police squad irritated by Norman’s principles barged backstage to hassle the performers.

They came into Ella’s dressing room, where band members Dizzy Gillespie and Illinois Jacquet were shooting dice, and arrested everyone. “They took us down,” Ella later recalled, “and then when we got there, they had the nerve to ask for an autograph.”

Norman wasn’t the only one willing to stand up for Ella. She received support from numerous celebrity fans, including a zealous Marilyn Monroe. This from the Marilyn Monroe Video Archives.

“I owe Marilyn Monroe a real debt,” Ella later said. “It was because of her that I played the Mocambo, a very popular nightclub in the ’50s. She personally called the owner of the Mocambo, and told him she wanted me booked immediately, and if he would do it, she would take a front table every night. She told him – and it was true, due to Marilyn’s superstar status – that the press would go wild. The owner said yes, and Marilyn was there, front table, every night. The press went overboard. After that, I never had to play a small jazz club again. She was an unusual woman – a little ahead of her times. And she didn’t know it.”

Next week we look at all the songbooks that Ella Fitzgerald recorded in her career.

Additional Sources
wikipedia
Ella Fitzgerald

I hope you have enjoyed this tribute to one of the icons of jazz and will join us again next week for the next part of the Ella Fitzgerald Story.

William Price King is an American jazz singer, crooner, and composer.

His interest in music began at an early age when he studied piano and clarinet in high school. At Morehouse College in Atlanta where he grew up, he sang in the Glee Club and studied classical music. After graduation he went off to the Yale School of Music where he earned a Masters degree. From there he journeyed to New York where he created a jazz trio ‘Au Naturel’ which performed in some of the hottest venues in Manhattan including gigs on Broadway and the famous ‘Rainbow Room.’ These gigs opened doors for performances in Montreal and a European tour.

While touring Europe he met a lovely French lady, Jeanne Maïstre, who, a year later became his wife. King left the group ‘Au Naturel’ and settled in the south of France where he started a new life on the French Riviera, opening his own music school – the “Price King Ecole Internationale de Chant.” He has had the pleasure over the years of seeing many of his students excel as singers on a professional level, and some going on to become national celebrities. He continues to coach young singers today, in his spare time.

Blog– IMPROVISATION – William Price King on Tumblr – Buy William’s music: William Price King iTunes – Facebook – William Price King – Twitter – @wpkofficial
Regular Venue – Cave Wilson

 

Thank you for dropping and as always William would love to receive your feedback… thanks Sally.