Ella Fitzgerald Sings "Summertime"

In 1956, Ella Fitzgerald severed all ties with Decca after 20 some years on their roster. She went over to Norman Granz's Verve label and began recording a series of albums spotlighting songs by all of the most important song writers in American musical history. Soon albums of familar and unknown songs by Kern, Gershwin, Porter, Mercer, Ellington and Berlin were garnering critical praise for Fitzgerald and helped popularize her name to a wider audience. It's also at this time that she began making a series of albums with the great arranger Nelson Riddle. These albums alone are spectacular displays of Fitzgerald's mature style and constitute the greatest recordings in popular music. It was during her stay at Verve and later at Capitol and Pablo that Fitzgerald appeared on records with Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Oscar Peterson, Joe Pass and Tommy Flanagan who virtually became her favorite pianist.

A very good sample of this growing maturity in style as well as a highlight of her plainly simple way with a slow ballad is George Gershwin's "Summertime" from his opera "Porgy and Bess." This fine performance from Berlin is a bit muffled, but enough of Fitzgerald's performance comes through that the ears get used to the terrible sound.