Ella Fitzgerald - Sings the Essential Cole Porter Songbook (LP)

Fitzgerald was sometimes considered a poor “libretto” singer, more interested in swing and harmony than in the emotional weight of a song. That was generally left to singers like Billie Holiday perminently, or Carmen McRae and Betty Carter. But with Porter, she was dealing with an artist whose rhythmic sophistication equalled her own and these songs in which rhyme and reason, music and meaning were pretty much the same thing. There have been misguided attempts to pass off the songs of Broadway and Tin Pan Alley as “America’s classical music”, which is somewhat missing the point. But if the word means anything at all, these performances are classics and among the first great works in the era of the long-playing record.

Including new liner notes by Brian Morton and Paris' prestigious Jazz Magazine.