Ella Sings Broadway

Ella Sings Broadway
Studio album by Ella Fitzgerald
Released	1963
Recorded	October 1–4, 1962
Genre	Jazz
Length	34:08
Label	Verve
Producer	Norman Granz
Ella Fitzgerald chronology
Ella Swings Gently with Nelson (1962) Ella Sings Broadway (1963) Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Jerome Kern Songbook (1963)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]

Ella Sings Broadway is a 1963 (see 1963 in music) studio album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, with an orchestra arranged and conducted by the American bandleader Marty Paich. Ella had previously recorded with Paich and his more familiar Dek-tette on the 1957 album Ella Swings Lightly, and was to record with him again on her 1967 album Whisper Not. Shortly before the sessions for Ella Sings Broadway , Ella had recorded two singles with Marty Paich, the Antonio Carlos Jobim song 'Desafinado' and a Bossa Nova version of the jazz standard 'Stardust'.

This album is a musical departure for Ella in many senses. As the author David Hajdu comments in his liner notes for the 2001 reissue of Ella Sings Broadway , virtually every important singer of standards had recorded an album of musical-theatre songs, Sinatra with My Kind of Broadway and The Concert Sinatra (an album often mistaken for a live recording), Sarah Vaughan with Great Songs From Hit Shows and Doris Day with Show Time .^[2]

These singers, especially Sinatra and Fitzgerald, had acquired a reputation of being consummate performers of the Great American Songbook, a songbook which by and large had been written before the outbreak of the Second World War, and which had been aped in its popularity with youth by Rock and Roll by the time of the Vietnam War. With many George and Ira Gershwin, Porter and Berlin standards having been written in the 1920s and 1930s, whilst Sinatra and Fitzgerald were growing up.

On Ella Sings Broadway , Ella connects with the Broadway songs of the previous decade and a half, vastly different in musical terms to the Great American Songbook standards from 40 years previously.

The twelve songs are from eight musicals, being;

• "Warm All Over" and "Somebody Somewhere" from Frank Loesser's The Most Happy Fella (1956)
• "If I Were a Bell" and "Guys and Dolls" from Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls (1950)
• "Almost Like Being in Love" from Lerner and Loewe's Brigadoon (1947)
• "I Could Have Danced All Night" and "Show Me" from Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady (1956)
• "No Other Love" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Me and Juliet (1953)
• "Dites-Moi" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific (1949)
• "Hernando's Hideaway" and "Steam Heat" from Adler and Ross's Pajama Game (1954)
• "Whatever Lola Wants" from Adler and Ross's Damn Yankees (1955)

Awarded 4 stars by Down Beat jazz magazine in 1963, the review commented that it was "A perfect complement to Fitzgerald's classic series of 'Song Book' albums".

Track listing

For the 1962 Verve LP release; Verve V6-4059; Re-issued in 2001 on CD, Verve 549 373-2

Side One:

1. "Hernando's Hideaway" (Richard Adler, Jerry Ross) – 3:17
2. "If I Were a Bell" (Frank Loesser) – 2:22
3. "Warm All Over" (Loesser) – 2:46
4. "Almost Like Being in Love" (Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe) – 3:02
5. "Dites-Moi" (Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II) – 2:30
6. "I Could Have Danced All Night" (Lerner, Loewe) – 2:22

Side Two:

1. "Show Me" (Lerner, Loewe) – 2:22
2. "No Other Love" (Rodgers, Hammerstein) – 2:20
3. "Steam Heat" (Adler, Ross) – 3:27
4. "Whatever Lola Wants" (Adler, Ross) – 3:13
5. "Guys and Dolls" (Loesser) – 2:21
6. "Somebody Somewhere" (Loesser) – 3:12

Personnel

Recorded October 1–4, 1962 at Capitol Studios, Hollywood, Los Angeles:

• Val Valentin - Engineer

Tracks 1-12

• Ella Fitzgerald - vocals
• Marty Paich - arranger, conductor

Others Unknown.

References

1. Dryden, Ken. "Ella Sings Broadway > Review". Allmusic. Retrieved August 4, 2011.
2. Sleeve notes; CD re-issue 2001 Ella Sings Broadway issued on Verve 549 373-2. (Notes by David Hajdu)