Ella Fitzgerald - Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Jerome Kern Songbook

Good album but way too short

I own most of Ella Fitzgerald's songbooks on CD so I was happy to add this to my collection. The only problem with it is that it's way too short. Unlike most of Ella's other songbooks this one only has 12 tunes. Lesser known songs such as `Let's Begin','I'll Be Hard to Handle','You Couldn't Be Cuter' and `Remind Me' would have been fine on a two LP collection of 25+ songs but here they take the place of standards like "Long Ago and Far Away", "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" and The Folks Who Live On The Hill.

The folks at Verve could have at last added "I Won't Dance" and "Pick Yourself Up" from "Ella Swings Brightly with Nelson" as bonus tracks to fill in the CD. Both albums were recorded around the same time so there is no difference in the sound of Ella's voice or Nelson Riddle's arranging style. May 14, 2005

Don't underate this!

One must laugh when reading these 8 reviews. If only all albums had this much artistry & care! While 3/4 of the reviews are *****, the comments would make one think it was rated much lower. One comment states her range was better on the Mecrer Songbook but she really goes flat on Day In Day Out. Another comment is that her Berlin Songbook is far better but I feel that one was her worst songbook. She was mismatched with the Berlin material. Reallly! It'a all personal taste! Ella didn't have the range of Sarah Vaughan, Eydie Gorme, Jane Morgan or Shirley Bassey but she had other great talents. In the later years when other singers would have been in their declines, Ella smartly picked a new manager & better quality songs & arrangements. She also kept her voice in tact as long as possible. No one singer has all the great qualities. She had so much variety in being able to do scat, straight jazz, pop, blues, & satire. She gave us knowledge of many great songs that would have been otherwise left forgotten. From this cd, She Didn't Say Yes, & I'll Be Hard To Handle are musts to any collection. I can't think of any singer who could have done those 2 better. Ella coud really swing & dramatize at same time. Not many could. I'm surprised no mentioned the at 1st 6 songs are better than the last 6. Here I think arranger Nelson Riddle was doing straight forward pop arrngements for the side A of the orginial lp & being adventurous with the B side. While I see how one may not like Way You Look Tonight, I give it ***** for an unique arrangement. In those days too many songs had to end in 3 minutes. This was allowed time to paint a complete canvas. If one wants a great introduction to a great American composer, start with this, please. May 20, 2004

Classic album, masterly treatment, all too brief.

Ella's Jerome Kern collection, with the singer in peak form backed by splendidly jazzy Nelson Riddle arrangements, is an essential component of her complete Verve Songbook masterwork, and a triumph of content over form. Coming late in the series, the project unfortunately received short shrift as a single-LP album whereas two or more discs had been the norm for prior Songbooks.

While the selection is an adequate sampling of Kern standards, there is simply not enough space on one disc to do justice to this great American composer's art. A multi-disc boxed set (similar to Fitzgerald's grandiose Gershwin and Ellington Songbooks), with material ranging from extensive selections from Show Boat and Roberta to lesser-known gems from the P. G. Wodehouse Princess Theater shows, would have been ideal for Kern; but alas! this was not to be, as the Verve Songbook series was then perceived as having run its course.

The magnificent performances of Fitzgerald and the Riddle orchestra more than atone. This album is absolutely not to be missed (for any reason) by followers of the artists, Kern, musical theatre or the American popular song. October 20, 2002

Ella is Ella, but don't start your collection here

Ella is always fabulous and there are a nice selection of Jerome Kern songs, but I have to say that this is not my favorite album by the incomparable Ms. Fitzgerald.

If you are beginning your SongBook Collection, I would recommend the Rogers and Hart Songbook, or the Johnny Mercer. Both demonstrate Ella's wonderful range much more effectively.

Nonetheless, you won't be disappointed with the JK Songbook. Ella still "sells" the songs beautifully. September 6, 2002

It COULD be cuter ...

While she was on the broad, lofty, sunlit plateau that corresponds with the `peak' in other singers' careers, Ella Fitzgerald was barely capable of singing a bum note, let alone recording a weak album. However, within the context of that supremely polished, summative exploration of American popular music, the `Songbook' series, the 1963 entry devoted to Jerome Kern is, in my view, the nearest to an indifferent collection. It should have been a cracker - Kern's constantly surprising refrains, Nelson Riddle's near-infallible sense of the most suitable arrangement, Fitzgerald's peerless, understated sensitivity to mood and melody.

In fairness, had this been the only Songbook that Ella ever recorded, it would still be a fine achievement by any standards. And there are many pleasures here. There is the characteristically subtle and un-obvious ordering of material - for instance, the album begins, aptly, with the relatively little-known but utterly charming `Let's Begin' rather than the crowd-pleasing `A Fine Romance' (which comes next) and ends on an unexpectedly low-key note with a desolate rendering of `Why Was I Born?' There are some moments of pure loveliness unsurpassed in any of Ella's or Riddle's other recordings: just listen to the way they build and round out that exquisite rising phrase in `I'm Old Fashioned' - " But sighing sighs, holding hands/ These my heart understands ..."

However, there is something slightly lackluster about the proceedings, and certain elements just don't work. For example, Riddle very seldom misjudged pace with any of his collaborators, but the tempo of `The Way You Look Tonight' - which should have been one of the jewels in Ella's songbook crown - is slow to the point of being funereal. And is it my imagination, or does Ella end `A Fine Romance' slightly flat? If these are two specific problems, there are others that are less tangible. The album just does not hang together or command your attention as do the other Riddle entries in the songbook series - not just the monumental Gershwin collection but also the underrated `Johnny Mercer Songbook,' which he arranged for Ella the year after doing Kern. If there is a single underlying problem, it is perhaps that Ella was not in her usual matchless voice for these sessions - there is a breathiness and a dullness of timbre which is certainly not present in her landmark album with Count Basie from July of the same year or, for that matter, in the Mercer songbook recorded towards the end of 1964.

In summary, if you're building up a collection of Ella's songbooks, then you won't want to leave this one out. There is an awful lot to appreciate in it both for the seasoned Fitzgerald fan and for those who simply love great tunes, often with excellent lyrics by the likes of Mercer and Dorothy Fields, sung with wit and tenderness. However, if you're relatively new to Ella's work, then my advice would be this: don't start here - experience first the lambent beauty of her work on the Berlin songbook (still, at the time of writing, available as two separate albums) or her definitive interpretation of the greatest music ever produced in Broadway, in the 2CD set devoted to the songs of Rodgers and Hart. November 28, 2000

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