Customer Reviews

The Ella Fitzgerald Companion : Seven Decades of Commentary

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This book is a must have for fans of Ella, the redoubtable first lady of jazz who could take even a trifle of a song and turn it into a gem with her distinctly buoyant, sunny, sure, fluid and gorgeous voice.

Ella was Frank Sinatra's favorite female vocalist -- for "The Voice" to single her out for this kind of acclaim was, and is, praise of the highest order. For all her talent, for all her celebrity and acclaim, however, Ella Fitzgerald ultimately remained a very private figure, an enigma to most, owing to her extreme shyness. This book gives glimpses not only into the modest woman behind the huge voice, but also the way she came up in the ranks through hardscrabble, honest work and the boosters in her life who recognized the greatness in her -- and made sure the world heard it.

The book is a compendium of commentary (reviews and reminiscences) published throughout her career. It is clear that Ella's talent was recognized during her own time, though many of the details of her personal life with its various disappointments were shrouded -- sublimated, perhaps, so that she could focus on the thing that made Ella the happiest -- singing. Sing she did, like very few others, pouring out her heart and the sunshine that gladdened the hearts of legions of fans (and still does today). If you don't yet know Ella's work -- or if you do -- this book is worth a read. And if you *don't* know Ella's work, don't waste any more time! The woman was almost supernaturally gifted with pipes of gold.

A tisket, a tasket, put this book in your shopping basket!

This book is a compilation of articles, linear notes & book excerpts plus a selected discography and bibliography of Ella Fitzgerald, "The First Lady of Jazz."
Follows her from orphan to icon - gives you an oversight of how the singer was discovered in Harlem and rose to be the highest-paid jazz singer in the world.
Not an actual biography this book collects writings about Ella Fitzgerald and her career from a variety of sources and follows her achievements over the years.

I don't know if it's this kind of "essay collection" book that I don't like, but now I'm looking for a more complete biography on Ella. But the text is most of the time very journalisticand boring, and way too positive to sound like a biography. I should have paid attention to the title "seven decades of commentary". My bad.