Ella Fitzgerald Live/New U.S. Postage Stamp

Now that she'd been dead at least ten years, the U.S. Postage Service released a new stamp yesterday (actually, the first new stamp of 2007) celebrating Ella Fitzgerald! Interestingly, it was released as part of the "Black Heritage" series instead of the Jazz series of stamps. I can't help what wonder what Ella would have thought. Would she rather be recognized as a Jazz Singer or for being Black?The ceremony on 10 Jan 2007 was performed at Lincoln Center and attended by her son Ray Brown, Jr. and the great, great Jazz Vocal singer Nancy Wilson!So, I was looking throught the 45 or so Ella Fitzgerald CDs I own and this one came up. Amongst the most favourite albums of Ella Fitzgerald fans are her live albums (with the exception of the "Songbook" series).This album was recorded in 1960 at the Deutschlandhallen in West Germany. As an engineer and person of few words, it's very difficult to properly describe every piece of Ella's work because all but the very last few of her albums are so consistantly good. With the live albums you get some clever alternative lyrics and banter.So, what do I tell you to have a look at on this CD? All of the songs are so good... Well, I think you might want to have a look at some of the songs that she didn't record all that often. One of these is "The Lorelei" by George Gershwin. When Ella's singing the lyrics, "I wan't to bite my initials into a sailor's neck..." I can picture her doing it!Historical Note: This is one of the first times a woman sang "Mack the Knife." Previously, only men had recorded it."Too Darn Hot," and "The Man I Love" are songs that aren't necessarily ones in her standard collection. We are in luck, as this CD is on "iTunes":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=525952&s=143441Oh!!! Here's the stamp...