April 25: Ella Fitzgerald centennial

I'm very embarrassed that I neglected Ella's 100th birthday yesterday. Above Sinatra, above Crosby, she's undoubtedly the greatest interpreter of American popular music. Her "songbook" albums of the great American composers - Porter, Rogers & Hart, Elington, Berlin, Gershwin, Arlen, Kern, and Mercer - took about nine years to complete and are staggering in the number of great tracks they contain. She fronted a major band as a teenager, was a star by her early twenties, and her voice remained stunningly good until her general health started failing when she was in her sixties.

I can load over 400 Ella Fitzgerald songs on an iPod, and there are days when I just listen to her all day. Why listen to anyone else?

Well said, Pete. I agree completely. "Autumn in New York," sung with Louis Armstrong, is my favorite.

I'm partial to Sarah Vaughan ,being from Jersey, but Ella Fitzgerald was surely a national treasure.

Ella and Louis did three albums together for Verve in the 50s, including one devoted to selections from Porgy and Bess, and those are available as a triple CD now. I can't even begin to choose a favorite track from that (other than whatever one I'm listening to).

If Patsy Cline hadn't had died so young then i think she would have gone down as one of the greatest.

100 Wow! I should have put her on my Happy Bday thread. Very true, Pete. She sings beautifully.

Ella was influenced by Ethel Waters. I got to see her when Route 66 filmed an episode in Pittsburgh. A bunch of us ventured down to the Lincoln Ave location to watch it.