Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book

on the one hand, it's self evidently really good. on the other hand, 3 hours of it is way way too much and i will die on the hill that this is not an 'album.' split the difference and call it a 3

It certainly is too long for repeated listens - but essential to do so at least once....

Ok. So yes, Ella Fitzgerald was amazing. This album has an amazing cover. 3+ hours of anyone singing Gershwin songs is decidedly less amazing. And also - it's cheating to have this album on the list anyway. Might as well include any number of 'best ofs' if we allow this one. And is this the longest album on the list? I decided when I started this project that I would listen to all the albums all the way through and at least give every song a chance before skipping them as a last resort. I never thought that the album that would try my patience the most (so far...) would be Ella Fitzgerald. It's not that I don't like it, it's just too long. And this kind of vocal jazz is just not that interesting to me. I think that unless Ella Fitzgerald is like your top favorite of all time, most people will probably be bored of this after the first 10 songs max. So I don't really know how to rate this one and am going to just give up and call it 2.5/5.

59 tracks and all great songs. I’ve never heard anything like it. A little before my time but still a great album.

I really enjoy Ella Fitzgerald's voice, but no way am I going to listen to 3+ hours of this. I listed to a 45 min "Very Best Of..." compilation twice instead. It's great and sets a mood well enough, but as with a lot of 50s music, I don't have a lot of patience for it personally. It's very obviously from a different time, and us enjoyable under the right conditions.

Es ist ein solides Album, das eine frische Interpretation von Gershwins Klassikern bietet. Die Titel sind anfangs sehr interessant, wiederholen sich jedoch im Verlauf des Albums, was bei der Länge etwas ermüdend wirken kann. Besonders hervorzuheben sind die Zupfelemente, die den Stücken eine besondere Note verleihen. Insgesamt ein gutes Album für Jazzliebhaber, aber ohne „have to hear‘s“.

59 songs? But last year- last year I had 69! 😡

After breaking that Magnetic Fields album into 3 days of listening, I decided to power through it all today. Broken up, of course- a bit in the wee small hours (speaking of that, here’s another album this week arranged by Nelson Riddle!), a bit before the first coffee, a bit on the work commute, etc.

In no order, highlights include Ella’s takes on:
“Funny Face”, “I Got Rhythm“, “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”, “Oh Lady Be Good”, “Just Another Rhumba”, “The Real American Folk Song”, “S Wonderful”, “You’ve Got What Gets Me”, “He Loves and She Loves”.

Since I don’t really choose to listen to vocal jazz in general, I was surprised how much I liked this. 3 hours is a bit numbing for any genre, and there are much shorter albums I didn’t fully absorb on 1st listen.
Nonetheless, I’ve already added Ella & Louis to my personal listen-list, so it’s probably a good takeaway that I didn’t listen to ENOUGH Ella Fitzgerald.

July 7, 2024

One thing I love about this project is the fact that it's challenging my preconceptions. I've never been keen on Ella Fitzgerald - especially her scat singing, which I find particularly irritating. But her treatment of this material is impeccable (one track with scat only!), and highlights the exceptional writing of the Gershwins. Yes, I listened to all 3hrs 15 mins (over a couple of days) and enjoyed almost all of it. I think that merits a five.

Erm.... Were we meant to listen to all 3 hours?

I got to 2 hours, and thought I'd extracted everything I could. Very nice voice, well crafted comfy songs... could not do three hours. If reviewed as a brief album, I'd probably say "yeah brilliant!" but it outstayed its welcome by the second "disc"... Tricky to rate, as that was kind of the point of a box set, and it's a great archive of american songbook stuff too, amazing voice etc... something historical more than something to enjoy for me. Nutritional.

Ella Fitzgerald has a beautiful voice, and I like a lot of these songs

But over 3 hours is way too long of an album, and I started feeling bored. Honestly it was feeling like a chore towards the end

So for that reason its a 3 ⭐️

Beautiful music. Far too many songs to try and enjoy in a short period.

I’m at a 3.5 that I'll rather kindly bump up to a 4.

Let me just be clear: no chance in hell I was gonna listen to the whole thing; I listened to a “best of” version that was only 45 minutes, and I get the distinct feeling that if I had listened to the whole thing, then… I dunno, who knows, maybe I’d somehow get to a 5.

From what I heard, this is super nice though. The orchestra does a great job of bringing these pieces to life, and I’m sure Ira Gershwin had a big say in the way all of these were recorded. Ella Fitzgerald… I’ve never heard her voice before today, for whatever reason. My goodness, what a voice. I don’t know how many more albums she has in these 1,001, but I hope it’s enough to hear more of her, and more of her doing contemporary music instead of more 1920s and 1930s standards.

Seriously, she kind of carries this album, but she shares it pretty equally with the instrumentation as well – I’m such a sucker for this sort of era because it really does feel long gone, even if these compositions have a timeless feel. Yes, there are cheesy lyrics on this album, and yes, some of these songs have lulls here and there, but I just really enjoyed listening to… you know, 45 minutes of what’s a roughly 3 hour album, but I digress. It’s pretty damn good; it’s nowhere near a 5 for me, but it’s enough of a spectacle and a window into the past that I can’t help but appreciate it. I’m good with a 4, and I think it’s worth being on the list.

The Queen stands above all.

Absolute marathon. This was really enjoyable to listen to. It is kinda cheating though because it’s more of a compilation than an album. Also the length means I likely won’t listen to the whole thing again.

Could have been a 4 if it was 10 tracks long.

very very long but good music

This is an unfair inclusion in a list of albums to listen to before you die because this is a box set. It is a collection of 59 recorded covers of songs by George and Ira Gershwin, done as part of Ella Fitzgerald's ambitious attempt to cover the entire Great American Songbook canon.

For my sanity, I listened to The Very Best of the Gershwin Songbook compilation which is 12 tracks for a runtime of 45 minutes. I will say, Ella's delivery and improvisation are remarkable over these well-constructed show tunes. Perhaps this compilation would have been a better inclusion than the 3-hour original box set. Alas, what we get is what we get.

Finally did it.

That was a slog. It's well crafted, but 3 hours of 60+ year old music isn't fun

Listened to the first of the four (five) LPs that comprise this, I think. The Apple Music version did not include the instrumentals at the beginning, but you can find those on a different release if you want to be a completist.

Glad to be exposed to this. What Pop was before the rock era, this is definitely a work of art. You can't find fault with Ella Fitzgerald, or the band. Perfect execution and this was the peak of Jazz as a popular music form. A type of literature, music school is still teaching this for sure even though it is really no longer in the pop idiom. Which is a bit disappointing considering the level of talent here. Again, glad to get it on the list. Was meditating on the question of "How would you feel if today was your last" and I was definitely glad I heard this before I died.

Good to see this on the list, I think eventually I will play the rest.

Great sound, some fantastic classics in the album.