19. Ella Fitzgerald — Sings The Gershwin Song Book (1959)

Avant garde cover for some decidedly non-avant garde tunes

1. After a month and a half off the wagon, it’s time to get back on. The thing about trying to listen through and write about 1,001 albums is you really need to maintain momentum, and late-September was a perfect storm of momentum-busting. For one thing, I took a delightful trip to Europe, hitting three towns in Portugal, Berlin, and Budapest over 2.5 weeks. It was awesome, and I listened to a number of the 1001, but found it hard to take time to write about ’em.
   
   For another thing, the next album I had to write about was Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Gershwin Songbook, which happens to be nearly 3.5 hours long. Woof.
2. It’s not that I dreaded it, though. I mean, who doesn’t love George & Ira Gershwin tunes sung by the First Lady of Swing? The problem is that I have strived to listen to each of these albums straight through in a single sitting, for effect. And that just wasn’t happening here.
3. In this case though, I’m not sure there’s as much value in going straight through. This isn’t an album in the more traditional sense. I’m not sure if the tracklisting is ordered with any sort of intent, or if it’s chronological, or what. There’s not some greater message being sent through the sequencing and unique effect of these tunes put together. This is blunt force trauma (in a good way), the dumping of 60 Gershwin classics in one spot. It’s really more of a playlist than an album, and I feel no shame picking and choosing my spots.
4. It’s also a delight. Even the worst Gershwin songs serve as perfectly valid and pleasant background music. And the best ones — the best are triumphant. The abbreviations and emphases put into various couplets on “S’Wonderful,” the swing of “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” the longing in “Someone To Watch Over Me,” the nostalgia of “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” It’s impossible to narrow this list down, the hits keep coming.
5. Listening to Ella in the context of this project is interesting. She’s not as abrasive and sharp as Billie Holliday; she’s not as smoky as Sarah Vaughan. But she swings, she flows, she lilts and flips and moves octave to octave effortlessly. She does it all and does it all well. As she sings on “I Got Rhythm” — who could ask for anything more?

One Essential Song:
(ed note: not fair to have to pick one)

Listen On Spotify:
(note: this has extra songs tagged onto the end, I believe the official collection ends at “Oh, Lady, Be Good!”)