Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book

I only listened to the first album. I always thought I didn't like vocal jazz beyond Frank Sinatra but I enjoyed this. However I am recognizing that some albums are just not going to connect with me just for their genre. This has a little bit of that.

Shortest 3+ hours of music. So good.

I listened to all the songs >500k listens. 3hrs? Nah. Timeless voice, she could sing the phone book and it would sound great. Makes me want it to be Xmas and watch 50s movies. 4/5.

I tried to finish this I really did but there is only so much time in the day, which is a shame because the music is fantastic, beautifuly sung and played, but this isn't the album by her that should be on the list. It's a collection if songs that last three hours, that's too long
4 for the music
2 for the actual album listening experience

Great vocals and arrangements as to be expected. But I have to admit I sampled the highlights amongst this monstrous 195 minute compilation that had no business being on this list. A halfhearted 3/5 given to shoo this away. Sorry Ella.

Extremely great. Perfect voice and the songs match her vibe entirely. I may have a bias as I associate these songs particularly with my grandmother. It doesn’t get 5 stars because it’s more of a compilation than an album

Immediate 5 stars with the caveat that this is not really a collection to sit down and swallow in one bite. But listen to it in short snatches and you get the greatest voice of the 20th Century singing some of the greatest songs of the 20th Century in arrangements by the incomparable Nelson Riddle.

If I'm being completely honest I prefer the Cole Porter set, because I like Cole Porter. But there's nothing to criticise here. Even Ira Gershwin said he hadn't realised how good the songs were until he heard Ella sing them. And yes, the "Best of" selection does make more sense.

But what a box of treasure!

I like Gershwin and Ella. This was slow and a bit dull

Jamais écouté avant.

Une expérience d'écoute très particulière, et qui restera sans doute unique pour moi, tant l'album en intégralité est long (plus de trois heures !). Difficile d'y prêter une attention active tout ce temps, d'autant plus dans ce style de jazz vocal vieillot qui a déjà tendance à beaucoup se ressembler d'un titre à l'autre. Ce qui n'en fait pas pour autant une écoute désagréable, loin s'en faut, et ce pour deux raisons principales : la formidable voix d'Ella Fitzgerald, bien entendu, parfaite d'un point de vue technique et profondément empreinte d'émotions et de sentimentalité ; et la qualité du son, impressionnante pour l'époque. Chaque inflexion de la voix d'Ella Fitzgerald, chaque note de chaque instrument de l'orchestre est rendue avec fidélité, et si ce n'était pour le sifflement typique qui trahit son âge (et lui confère aussi un charme désuet), on pourrait penser à un enregistrement bien plus tardif que la fin des années 1950. Finalement, une rencontre bienvenue avec une légende, mais à l'avenir, je me contenterai de la version Very Best of, qui semble bien plus digeste.

Top : But Not for Me
Flop : Fidgety Feet

Loses a star for length of album

What a lovely way to spend a Sunday. Don't know what you ticktock-addled-brains folks' problem is, I could've gladly listened to another 5 hours of this. Pure camp, and I thought I wasn't a massive Gershwin person before I heard this. Will have to check out the Cole Porter one as well. Well done Ella bestie on this massive undertaking

I can't believe that anyone other than this album's producers and engineers would listen to this record in its entirety in one sitting, so I approached it like I would if I owned a copy, listening to it in digestible portions over the course of a couple of weeks.

Ella Fitzgerald has a great voice, of course, as well as a great sense of timing; I always respect singers who can syncopate with the beat of the music like this. And of course Gershwin was a talented lyricist (“it’s just another rhumba - why did I have to succumbha?”). Of course as usual, I liked the speedier tracks better than the slow ballads and love songs. There were also a handful of instrumental Gershwin pieces that were nice to hear.

Summary: this album is a wonderful historical resource, but not something I'd go out of my way to listen to again. One or two of these songs would be fun to hear if it popped up after a Magnetic Fields track on the radio.

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.