#Ella fitzgerald cole porter songbook how to#
#Ella fitzgerald cole porter songbook series#

Those who are simply looking for the hits can purchase singles for 99 cents each.īut Verve wouldn’t just reissue old tracks without re-imaging them somehow. Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook - all 16 standards, from “All Through the Night” to “From this Moment On” – is available online for $9. The gatekeeper argument might be reasonable for box sets that contain song after song of alternate takes, but the Fitzgerald songbooks are all complete recordings, and the originals can easily be found on iTunes. But with instant access to the guts of a recording, there’s no reason to let someone else choose the best songs. Traditionally, gatekeepers in charge of the original recordings got to choose what most people heard, either because the cost of the boxed set was prohibitive or the material was oppressively comprehensive. Anyone can make a playlist of hits and cut out the middle man. Instead of becoming an artistic choice, these new discs limit the amount of song listeners encounter.Ĭollecting massive amounts of material on single disc collections does make the music more affordable, but with the advent of mp3 and Internet music vendors, these releases aren’t as useful as they previously were. Both Rodgers and Hart and the Cole Porter songbooks were originally released on two discs by cramming a slew of hits on once CD, Seilel turns selectivity, which originally was a part of the work, into a liability. That original creative filtering is impaired by the current “best of” releases: Verve’s new version of Fitzgerald’s interpretation.

#Ella fitzgerald cole porter songbook how to#

She was playing the gatekeeper, choosing how to stylize an artist’s version of the best of the best. The songs had not been recorded by Fitzgerald, so she was making an artistic decision. But this filtering was seen as interpretation on the original releases. It would have been improbable to record the entire oeuvre of Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, and the rest of the gang, so, before any culling had to be done for “best of” collections, Granz and Fitzgerald were doing some of their own.

#Ella fitzgerald cole porter songbook series#

In fact, six of the 22 songs are found on both collections.įitzgerald’s original songbook series only included a very limited selection of songs from each composer. Ella Fitzgerald: The Very Best of the Cole Porter Songbook, and the new hits package from the Rodgers and Hart songbook, each showcase 11 songs hand-picked by Richard Seilel, the man behind the Golden Anniversary release. The latest repackaging of Fitzgerald’s work is closer to a Cliffs Notes summary than an abridged songbook. These abridged versions work like the transfer of a novel to audio book, important information is lost in the process, but the main idea is still there. In 2006, Verve released The Very Best of the Songbooks: Golden Anniversary Edition, which compiled 22 tracks on 2 CDs. The Best of the Songbooks: The Ballads and The Best of the Songbooks: Love Songs followed shortly after. “Best of” collections were issued immediately, with The Best of the Verve Songbooks popping up the same year the set hit the shelves. Verve accomplished a second level of selectivity after reissuing the entire songbook series in 1993 as 16 CDs. By 1964, her songbooks had been issued on records, but the work was so massive that abridged versions of the collection seemed necessary simply to process it all. Over the next eight years, Fitzgerald would focus on seven other Tin Pan Alley composers, and select from the hundreds of tunes by each the 250 songs to fill her recording project. In 1956, with the guidance of producer Norman Granz, Ella Fitzgerald began selecting material for the first album in her songbook series, Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook.