Of Fitzgerald’s almost countless recordings, my favorites have always been her Song Book series, produced by Norman Granz, shown here. These present the music of Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Rodgers & Hart, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, and Johnny Mercer, beautifully scored by Nelson Riddle, Billy May, Billy Strayhorn, Buddy Bregman, and other leading arrangers. These recordings, as a group, helped lay the foundations for what we now call the Great American Songbook.
Along the way, we learn about Fitzgerald’s personal qualities and idiosyncrasies, including a surprising and profound lack of confidence and a need to please others. We read about the female jazz singers who came up alongside her: Sarah Vaughan, Lena Horne, Etta James, and most famously Billie Holiday, shown below, whose style was radically different and yet was constantly compared with Fitzgerald’s.
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