IMAGINATION
ELLA
FITZGERALD
SONGWRITERS:
JAMES VAN HEUSEN & JOHNNY BURKE
COUNTRY:
U. S. A.
ALBUM: IMAGINATION
LABEL: DECCA
RECORDS
GENRE: JAZZ
YEAR: 1940
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 fourteen Grammy
Awards, the National
Medal of Arts, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Between 1935 and 1955 Ella Fitzgerald was signed to Decca
Records. Her early recordings as a featured vocalist were
frequently uncredited. Her first credited single was 78
RPM recording "I'll Chase the Blues Away" with the Chick Webb Orchestra. Fitzgerald continued recording with Webb until his death in 1939,
after which the group was renamed Ella Fitzgerald and Her Famous Orchestra.
With the introduction of 10" and 12" Long-Playing records in the late 1940s, Decca released several original albums of
Fitzgerald's music and reissued many of her previous single-only releases. From
1935 to the late 1940s Decca issued Ella Fitzgerald's recordings on 78rpm singles and album collections,
in book form, of four singles that included eight tracks. These recordings have
been re-issued on a series of 15 compact disc by the French record label Classics
Records between 1992 and 2008.
In 1956 Ella Fitzgerald signed with Verve Records,
the Norman Granz record label. Fitzgerald recorded with Verve until the mid-1960s. Included
in this era were a series of eight Song Book albums, with interpretations of
the greater part of the Great
American Songbook, with songs from the pens of Cole Porter (1956), Rodgers
& Hart (1956), Duke Ellington (1957), Irving
Berlin (1958), George and Ira Gershwin (1959), Harold
Arlen (1961), Jerome Kern (1963) and Johnny
Mercer (1964). Ella Fitzgerald released many
stand alone singles throughout her Verve years. These
were re-issued in 2003 on the 2-CD set, Jukebox Ella: The Complete Verve Singles, Vol.
1.
The late 1960s and early 1970s saw Fitzgerald
release albums on several major record labels, including three albums on Capitol Records and two on the Reprise
Records label. In 1972 Norman Granz formed Pablo Records,
the label continued to release Ella Fitzgerald's albums up until her last
recorded album All That Jazz in 1989.
In
recent years the Ella Fitzgerald back catalogue has continued to grow, this
includes complete albums of previously unreleased live material and alternative
recordings from her studio sessions.
Imagination is funny, it makes a cloudy day Sunny
Makes a bee think of honey just as I think of you
Imagination is crazy,
your whole perspective gets hazy
Starts you asking a daisy: What to do, what to do?
Have you ever felt a
gentle touch and then a kiss
And then and then, find it's only your imagination again?
Oh, well
Imagination is silly,
you go around willy-nilly
For example I go around wanting you
And yet I can't imagine that you want me, too.
Postagens
