Ella Fitzgerald: The Best of the Songbooks

iTunes Review

Had Ella Fitzgerald stopped recording after the completion of her great American songbook cycle for Verve in the ‘50s, her legacy as one of America’s great jazz and pop singers would have still been secure. This material has tested the mettle of every saloon singer who’s come down the pike since, yet Fitzgerald’s readings of Gershwin, Porter, Berlin, Mercer, Kern, and Rodgers and Hart here remain the benchmark for all who’ve followed. If her Verve songbook anthologies skimmed the cream of those songwriters’ catalogs, this compilation essentially refines it into virtual musical confection. Sinatra may have frequently imbued this material with world-weary nuances, but Ella’s knack for infusing tunes like “Something’s Gotta Give” and  “S’ Wonderful” with her effusive jazz chops remains second to none, while her way with the gentler ballads only suggests how underrated her own ability to get to a song’s emotional core may have been.