Easy Living

Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Pass | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 1, 1991)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Pablo
• ASIN: B000000XK5
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #264,628 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Recorded in Los Angeles in 1983 and 1986, Easy Living was one of a series of Ella Fitzgerald-Joe Pass collaborations on Pablo throughout the '80s. In addition to the original album's 15 tracks, the reissue also includes two previously unreleased bonus tracks -- alternate takes of "Don't Be that Way" and "Love for Sale."

Easy Living and the other collaborations between these two veterans "worked on many levels," says Tad Hershorn in his liner notes for the reissue. "As her voice aged and deepened, Fitzgerald discovered partial remedies in her phrasing, choices of keys and the pleasing maturity that now enveloped her still youthful voice. Pass was the perfect foil to display her diminishing resources to their best and most emotive advantage. Ella was known to incessantly toy with songs in her restless artistic striving, so one can perceive the music she made with Pass as a direct extension of her creative method. The leanness of their music underscores that even this late in her career, Ella Fitzgerald retained her bonafides as a singer for whom words did matter: not every song was merely a vehicle for her to bat notes out of the park. The allure was in the quiet majestic intimacy that focused an audience's attention on full absorption of the musings of joy, wistfulness, and melody."

The level of confidence with which each of these two musicians performs on this recording is hard to miss. "The fact that Ella could walk into the studio with a bunch of lead sheets," says Phillips, "and they could do a little rehearsal on the spot, figure out the best key for her, and he could just play it in any key behind her -- all of that takes some phenomenal musicianship . . . They have a very conversational, relaxed sensibility about them, and both musicians seem very much at ease performing together and recording together in the studio." --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another great CD from the dynamic duo, February 3, 2000

By 

Joseph Cossette (Fort Lauderdale, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Easy Living (Audio CD)

Although recorded 13 years later than their "Take Love Easy" sessions, these sessions sound great too. If you're a fan of this duo then you'll love this CD too. Jazz vocal/guitar duos that sound this good are rare. Between the two of them they really swing on some tunes. Every tune on this CD is great.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars To Pass Or Not To Pass, September 11, 2007

By 

Barry McCanna (Normandy, France) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Easy Living (Audio CD)

It's been a while since I played this CD, which was greeted with rave reviews on its first issue in 1986. Ella was then in her late sixties, by which time her voice was past its best, which manifests itself in what could be charitably described as a wide vibrato on sustained notes. Listening again, I'm reminded of her later tendency to take liberties with both tune and lyrics. That would be defensible if it improved upon the original, but that was always arguable in her case, and the facility did not improve with the passing years.

My copy carries a tracklist which adds up to under an hour of music, and nothing in the way of a liner note. These deficiencies are offset by Joe Pass's sympathetic accompaniment, which was for me the deciding factor in its purchase.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad, June 30, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Easy Living (Audio CD)

It's not that it's a bad CD or anything, it's just not the greatest. The recording dates of the sessions of this CD are probably the most important parts to take notice of: 1983 and 1986. This means that Ms. Fitzgerald was fairly old, and her health was not the greatest at this time, and it shows a little bit on the record. On a few songs she's just out of tune, and sounds old.

Mr. Pass' playing is up to its usual snuff, of course; just simple, easy-sounding playing that carries the tune without overdoing it.

There are better records of Ella Fitzgerald with Joe Pass, if this is what one is looking for; Fitzgerald & Pass...Again, for example, is pretty nice.