Ella and Louis

Infobox Album | Name = Ella and Louis
Type = Album


Released = 1956
Artist = Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong
Recorded = August 16, 1956
Genre = Jazz
Length = 54:06
Label = Verve
Producer = Norman Granz
Reviews =
Reviews =
* Allmusic Rating|4.5|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:7p9yxdab8oly link]
Last album =
This album = " Ella and Louis "
(1956)
Next album = " Ella and Louis Again "
(1957)|

"Ella and Louis" is a 1956 studio album (see 1956 in music) by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, and the Oscar Peterson Quartet.

The Album

Norman Granz, the founder of the Verve label, selected eleven ballads for Fitzgerald and Armstrong, mainly played in a slow or moderate tempo.

The success of "Ella and Louis" was replicated by "Ella and Louis Again" and "Porgy & Bess". All three were released as "The Complete Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong on Verve". Jasen and Jones called the set a "pinnacle of popular singing”. ["Black Bottom Stomp: Eight Masters of Ragtime and Early Jazz", by David A. Jasen and Gene Jones, 272 pages, Routledge Chapman & Hall (September 2001), ISBN-10: 0415936411, ISBN-13: 978-0415936415] ]

Reception

The "The Penguin Guide to Jazz" by Cook/Morton rated the album with four stars.

Verve released the album also as one of the first ones in Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD).

Track listing

# “Can't We Be Friends?” (Paul James, Kay Swift) – 3:45
# “Isn't This a Lovely Day?” (Irving Berlin) – 6:14
# “Moonlight in Vermont” (John Blackburn, Karl Suessdorf) – 3:40
# “They Can't Take That Away from Me” (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) – 4:36
# “Under a Blanket of Blue” (Jerry Livingston, Al J. Neiburg, Marty Symes) – 4:16
# “Tenderly” (Walter Gross, Jack Lawrence) – 5:05
# “A Foggy Day” (G. Gershwin, I. Gershwin) – 4:31
# “Stars Fell on Alabama” (Mitchell Parish, Frank Perkins) – 3:32
# “Cheek to Cheek” (Berlin) – 5:52
# “The Nearness of You” (Hoagy Carmichael, Ned Washington) – 5:40
# “April in Paris” (Vernon Duke, Yip Harburg) – 6:33

Personnel

Capitol Tower, Hollywood, August 16, 1956 Val Valentin (eng)
*Louis Armstrong - Vocals, Trumpet
*Ella Fitzgerald - Vocals
*Ray Brown - bass
*Herb Ellis - guitar
*Oscar Peterson - piano
*Buddy Rich - drums

Sources