ELLA FITZGERALD - BLUE SKIES

BLUE SKIES

ELLA FITZGERALD

SONGWRITER: IRVING BERLIN

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: GET HAPPY

LABEL: VERVE RECORDS

GENRE: JAZZ

YEAR: 1959

 

           Ella Jane Fitzgerald(April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996) was an American jazz singer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.

      After a tumultuous adolescence, Fitzgerald found stability in musical success with the Chick Webb Orchestra, performing across the country but most often associated with the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. Her rendition of the nursery rhyme "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" helped boost both her and Webb to national fame. After taking over the band when Webb died, Fitzgerald left it behind in 1942 to start her solo career. Her manager was Moe Gale, co-founder of the Savoy, until she turned the rest of her career over to Norman Granz, who founded Verve Records to produce new records by Fitzgerald. With Verve she recorded some of her more widely noted works, particularly her interpretations of the Great American Songbook.

       While Fitzgerald appeared in movies and as a guest on popular television shows in the second half of the twentieth century, her musical collaborations with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and The Ink Spots were some of her most notable acts outside of her solo career. These partnerships produced some of her best-known songs such as "Dream a Little Dream of Me", "Cheek to Cheek", "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall", and "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)". In 1993, after a career of nearly 60 years, she gave her last public performance. Three years later, she died at the age of 79 after years of declining health. Her accolades included 14Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts, the NAACP's inaugural President's Award, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

        Get Happy! is a 1959 album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, recorded with various studio orchestras over a two-year period.

Blue skies

Smiling at me

Nothing but blue skies

Do I see

 

Bluebirds

Singing a song

Nothing but bluebirds

All day long

 

Never saw the sun shining so bright

Never saw things going so right

Noticing the days hurrying by

When you're in love, my how they fly

 

Blue days

All of them gone

Nothing but blue skies

From now on

 

I never saw the sun shining so bright

Never saw things going oh-so right

Noticing the days hurrying by

When you're in love, my how they fly

 

Blue days

All of them gone

Nothing but blue skies

From now on.