Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book

For a three hour long album, don't got a lot to say other than that it's really good. Three hours of Fallout-core isn't a bad thing in my book.

But yeah, it very much is vibe music for me. Can't pick out specific songs I like when it all blends together, especially at that length. Just sit back, listen, and vibe.

Absolute colossus of an album. Not gonna call it a compilation, since neither Wikipedia nor MusicBrainz considers it as one. And as far as I can tell, all of the songs were recorded in the same exact year, so that's not really "compilation" material to me.

Despite its sheer size, I quite enjoyed the listen. Never a bad moment. But the fact that it's three hours does kinda water it down, making individual tracks that much less special. It's also pretty hard to listen in one sitting. And while I did like it, it's perhaps not my favourite kind of jazz. Hence I'd still edge towards 4/5 instead of 5/5.

Disc 1
Track 2 & Track 4.
Enough said

Wow

I loved this! I had to listen to it gradually (it took me over a month), but it was so enjoyable. Her voice is just amazing and I'm a musical gal, so how could I not love this?!

The Good: Ella Fitzgerald!
The Bad: It’s not a book…
The Ugly: Having to listen to 3+ hours of Gershwin songs…

I am not going to repeat what most people have already said.

Shame that we couldn’t have just been presented with Ella Fitzgerald’s In A Mellow Mood… 38 minutes of mellowness, probably an easy 4*, or more…

Anyway, plenty of memorable Gershwin tunes on this album, if you can sit through them all… and it was not easy.

3*

Going into this, I knew that three hours of Ella Fitzgerald was going to be a challenge, and I honestly thought this might be the first album in the 1001 challenge that I wouldn’t finish.

By 9pm, I finally got there.

That said, I do think this is slightly unfair to judge in the same way as a normal 30–40 minute, 10-track album. This is really more of a box set or collection than a traditional album, and I think that matters. You don’t really sit down and consume all of this in one go in the same way you would a standard studio album — it feels more like something to dip in and out of over time.

In that sense, it was easier to get through because it works well in the background. I found myself dropping in and out of it throughout the day rather than actively listening to every second. The collection moves through so many styles — cabaret, jazz standards, Disney-style vocals, pop and more — that it can feel a bit all over the place.

My biggest question is simply whether it needed to be this long. There were moments I found genuinely beautiful and interesting, but there were also large sections that drifted into the background or felt a little dull. A lot of it, if I’m honest, passed by without leaving much of an impression.

One thing that absolutely has to be said, though, is that Ella’s voice is wonderful. Even when the material wasn’t connecting with me, her vocal talent was impossible to ignore. The warmth, clarity and effortless control in her singing are remarkable.

This collection isn’t really my thing overall, but there are undeniably beautiful moments throughout.

Favourite tracks: “But Not for Me” and “Nice Work If You Can Get It” were both enjoyable
Least favourite tracks: So much of this went by without fully grabbing my attention
Album artwork: Cool album cover

Haha oh no, I'm in danger. Luckily I got this QUADRUPLE* album on a weekend! I do find the concept appealing, as a completionist and fan of themes, even if I'm not an especial fan of Ella Fitzgerald or The Gershwins™ (honestly, I didn't even know there were two of 'em... only know about the airplane song).
Now that I meditate on it, my dad might have a (?blue, cardboard?) Gershwin(s?) album, but I must have found it very boring since I am not quite sure it exists. Will get back to you. [Update: he does have one, but it's neither blue nor cardboard; that was a different instrumental album ("Slaughter On Tenth Avenue"). It sure is easy to mix things up! In fact, I might have mixed up both albums with a large paperback book of baby names that had storks on it ("The Best Baby Name Book in the Whole Wide World"). I could probably read that whole book and listen to both albums and this would still be playing.]

*or SEXTUPLE? There's a lot of versions floating around out there; I tried my best to listen to the original release, which is described on ellafitzgerald.com as both a "5LP Box Set" and a "six LP collection" - further text goes on to clarify that it is "5 LPs and a 10" LP", which I think adds up to.... six LPs. Even if one is just a little guy. Imagine telling someone you have five cats and one very small cat. What an outrageous thing to say. Do you have 5 cats? Or 6?? Well, isn't every 6-disc collection also a 5-disc collection? No!! Are we living in a Mitch Hedberg joke?! Anyway, I listened to the 6 album version with the tiny 6th album.

It's pleasant and a cool project, but I don't know that many of the songs... even though a lot of them are from 1920s-30s (film) musicals, which is neat. Maybe these guys were the Rogers + Hammerstein of their time. Or the Sondheim of their time. Is the current Sondheim Sondheim? Maybe if Lin-Manuel Miranda does more stuff it'll be him. Where are all the lady musical composers?? >:(

The singing is obviously good, but it's not a style I'm that into. It's like... vocal jazz. (Update: wow the wiki genre is "vocal jazz"! I'm getting better at this!) So slow... no choruses... no variety!

I did learn the idiom "the worm has turned", though.

other Linguistic Intrigue: "I'm biding my time/'cause that's the kinda girl I'm" is surely ungrammatical; "Have a crush on" apparently dates to at least 1903; "lovelight" is a word you only hear in 100-year old songs; "All the sexes from Maine to Texas / Have never known such love before" is a wild line for 1931 (assuming a societal presupposition that the # of sexes = 2)

Highlights: 'Let's Call the Whole Thing Off' (because it's a language-related song, even though it probably entrenched some toxic ide-"ɑ"-logy), "When you said you care, imagine my emosh / I swore then and there, permanent devosh" (feels very early to have those clippings!), 'Slap That Bass' (for some reason this is one of the songs I knew, even though I have no idea how. [Update: Nick Cave sings it in the movie 'Joker: Folie à Deux'. Culture!]), 'Fascinating Rhythm' (especially fascinating: it's a song about an earworm that isn't an earworm! and it has the word "flivver" in it (=janky old car), which is another word you only hear in 100-year-old songs)

Lowlight: 'Strike up the Band' is a UCLA song. Boooo.

It's fine. I find a lot of these standards to be fairly boring but I can't overly knock them either.

Beautiful and mesmerising to listen to. I'm so happy

I might not have been that focused on this album. First of all I listen to only the first CD of the boxset but I don't think it would have changed anything to go throught all the CDs.

But yes, Ella Fitzgerald has a great voice and Gershwin was a genius.

Favorite Songs: Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

A legendary musician sings terrible songs.

Is this 1001 albums you must hear before you die or 1001 Ella Fitzgerald tracks you must hear before you die? It's very nice, but it's a little much.

Yes, as much respect as Ella Fitzgerald deserves (and she has all my respect—what a voice, what a talented woman she was!), this compilation shouldn’t be here. I agree with the guy who gave it a low rating—my attempt to listen to this entire box set failed miserably!

So, I’m not going to pretend to be a connoisseur just for the sake of it, just to avoid going against the grain: there are albums that deserve to be here more, given the criteria the author of this list himself laid out :-(

Tror vurderingen av dette albumet kan variere litt ut fra hvor god man er til å porsjonere det ut. Det er jo mye bra her, og åpenbare klassikere, topp musikk og absolutt viktig, men det er for mye av det. Stundvis glemte jeg at jeg hørte på et album. Så måtte jeg ta en pause og plutselig hørtes albumet bra ut igjen, men å avslutte med rene instrumentaler var seigt. Scoren får 2 basert på at det ikke er mulig å høre på dette som 1 album.

At den gruppa her misliker dobbeltalbum er en ting, og da sier det seg vel selv hvordan et sekstuppelalbum gjør det.

It was a fina album but it is not my style it really gives me the 50s vibes but it is 3 hours long.

Pre Listen:
Ah, Ella Fitzgerald. Back when I was first really getting into exploring my musical tastes, the first genres I found I adored were Big Band, Swing, and Jazz. Resulting I became well acquainted with Ella's work pretty early into my life, and while I don't believe I have any songs from this collection on my playlist, I'm sure I'll enjoy this music.

Disclaimer, due to the length of the full collection, I decided to only listen to Volumes 1 and 2.

Notable Tracks:
They All Laughed | They Can't Take That Away From Me - Both songs are tied for 2nd place as my favorite songs. Energetic rhythms that I can hum along to. Would be fun to sing along to as well, if I took the time to learn the lyrics.
Clap Yo' Hands - My least favorite track in the first half of the collection. It sounds fine, but it's really missing a lot of the poetic lyricism in much of Ella's work. Fun song, just feels out of place amongst the rest.
For You, For Me, For Evermore - My favorite song on the collection. This song just strums the right heart strings for me. Maybe it's the soft guitar at the start, leading into a more dreamy swing with the rest of the band. It gives me that rosy feeling of nostalgia more than any other track on here.

Post Listen:
Ella Fitzgerald has been celebrated to the moon and back from her incredibly expansive works. Her voice is absolutely Golden, and the Big Bands she often worked with compliment her talent incredibly well. They all elicit images of a romantic past from a bygone time, where things were a bit classier, and life was brighter.

Of course such a time is only fantasy, and looking in to the true stories from Ella's career shatter those nostalgia goggles. It's nice to pretend things were perfect once upon a time though, and this album transports you to such a fantasy with ease.
Love ya Ella. 4/5

Stunning voice, of course. But I'm not sure this music was even designed to be marathoned across 3+hours so it seemed a bit of a challenge to get through.

Listened to probably the first 3 songs and then started skipping through them. It's quite impressive that, despite all the songs that hadn't been written yet in the 50s, these guys managed to make the same one 59 times.

Hey, you know what? Ella Fitzgerald? Very good singer. And the Gershwins? Very good songwriters. What's not to love?

I mean, I suppose you could criticize the run time, but in this particular case, I don't think it's a valid criticism. The length isn't a matter of self-indulgence, but rather, a matter of completeness. Without a doubt, this album is included as a representation of some of the greatest American music ever made, rather than as an album itself, and I'm perfectly fine with that.