At Juan-Les Pins (Dig) [Original recording remastered]

Ella Fitzgerald | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 4, 2002)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Umvd Labels
• ASIN: B00006466W
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #265,469 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #94 in Music > Jazz > Vocal Jazz > Vocalese

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

There is no dearth of live Ella Fitzgerald recordings. What makes this two-disc documentation of a 1964 French festival appearance special is the chance, thanks to the addition of a wealth of previously unreleased music, to hear her performances of the same basic set from successive nights. Basking in the presence of trumpet giant Roy Eldridge, Ella breezes through an appealing, varied program that includes favorites such as "Mack the Knife" and "A-Tisket, A-Tasket," big band classics including "Shiny Stockings" and "Perdido," and contemporary tunes such as "People" and "Can't Buy Me Love." As ever, Ella is best scatting and skittering her way into the audience's heart, particularly when she lets her hair down during her extended encores. And as supported by a rhythm section including pianist Tommy Flanagan, she's in very good form on such ballads as Mack Gordon's "Somewhere in the Night" as well. Viva la Ella. --Lloyd Sachs

Product Description

Spurred on by enthusiastic crowds and supported by what was probably the best band she ever toured with (featuring two certifiable jazz greats, pianist Tommy Flanagan and trumpeter Roy Eldridge), the First Lady of Song is captured at the peak of her power. For the first time, all the music recorded on both nights, much of it previously unreleased, is available in one package. High resolution, 96 kHz, 24-bit digitally remastered. New liner notes, photographs & original cover art. 2 CDs in a Gatefold digipak. 2002 release on Verve.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sound quality complaints, but still so good it's a must-have, June 13, 2002

By 

"songlife" (Dayton, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: At Juan-Les Pins (Dig) (Audio CD)

I've been waiting for this for many years; it's finally here, and it arrives with two complete concerts instead of one! Gotta thank Verve for revisiting the master tapes and including all the extra stuff. The packaging is very nice too, although a little too cumbersome and extravagant without needing to be, since the only interesting things inside are the slim booklet and the CDs.

Juan-Les-Pins is great Ella. Not the best Ella, but great, and in her case, that makes it a classic. I prefer "Ella In Hollywood", with a set list that had some open-ended songs she could scat her heart out on, or imitate Louis Armstrong, or forget the lyrics to, which always adds up to a lot of fun. Ella could be absolutely explosive and blow people's minds in an instant, when she wasn't tired or vocally stressed. Juan-Les-Pins is sort of in the middle of the former positives and the latter negatives, although as Ella's concerts go, I place it second on my list of favorites. She does only a little hard-core scatting (on Perdido); overall these are fairly standard versions of the tunes with only a modest amount of improv. Even so, that's good in most cases: 'Summertime' is mesmerizing, 'Mack The Knife' is somewhat perfunctory but still swings hard as always, 'Day In Day Out' is bright and energetic; 'I Love Being Here With You' is classic Ella, 'The Cricket Song' is charming, and 'Shiny Stockings' is so catchy you'll be humming it for days. What makes this show better than, for example, "Ella In Hamburg" (which is boring) is the song selection, a different band, and a bit more improv and fun. Ella was in good spirits, laughing a lot as usual, and she was in good voice - although at times you can hear some ragged edges caused by her extraordinarily busy touring schedule. But as always she's pitch-perfect, absolutely brilliant, highly creative, and was still able to evoke that sweet, pure, dreamy sound from her voice that she usually attains at least once per song. 'Pure' is the important word there - no one could beat Ella for vocal purity. She could hit notes effortlessly and sustain them perfectly, to the point where anyone who doesn't get a big smile of amazement and happiness on his or her face must be tone-deaf. Sinatra once described her as "sonorous" and "mellifluous" and those are perfect adjectives for Ella, along with "stunning" and "thrilling". Although she sometimes loses me when she hits certain low registers, or tries too hard to jazz up a line, those moments are few and far between here. This concert was only a few years off from when that golden voice started to fray, but there was very little evidence of it at this set of shows.

Major problem: sound quality. The music is advertised as being in 24-bit/96 KHz sound, 'meticulously remastered', etc, but it doesn't sound very good at all. To clarify, I listen to music through headphones, and on my audio setup this CD was very disappointing. If you listen to your music on a boombox or stereo, perhaps while you do other things, it will probably sound fine, so don't take what I say about it too seriously unless you're an audiophile. In 'phones, the stereo separation is practically nonexistent; it's either in mono or it might as well have been. All the remastering in the world isn't going to help that. Ella's voice is much louder than anything else, and the band is in the background, all clumped together in the center with no separation. The drums suffer the most, especially the hard-to-hear cymbals which seem to occasionally have a mild tape-phasing effect. When I turned up the volume in an attempt to hear the band better, Ella's voice became way too loud, as did the audience applause, which was almost eardrum-shattering. I love Ella, but I don't want her voice to make me go deaf! It's a very poor mix. Probably not the fault of the remastering techs though; it's the fault of the original engineer, who should have been fired immediately after his incompetent work on these shows. It would be easier to deal with this if Verve had put some kind of disclaimer about it on the package, but they didn't, in fact they brag how good it sounds and they charge a high price to reflect that. So be advised - if you're an audiophile, these discs will give you some headaches. It's worth overlooking not only for the casual fan who won't mind it, but also the fanatics, because of the quality of the performances and the high rarity of all the unreleased tracks. If you're an Ella fan even in passing, you've gotta get this one. Thank goodness someone up there at Verve cares about Ella's legacy enough to unleash this rare and superb material.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best Ella's concerts!, June 23, 2002

By 

Michele Scasso (Firenze, Italy) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: At Juan-Les Pins (Dig) (Audio CD)

This is one of my favorite concerts of Ella. I say that, in contrast with another review that you can read here, and I can prove it: Ella in Hollywood was moving, but Ella wasn't in a great voice (she sang many sets during those nights, so she was tired). Ella at the Opera House is wonderful, but still too much linkes to the JATP years. Ella in Hamburg is very good, but the sound is a little bad (I have the mono LP, and it's better).

Ella at Juan-les Pins is better from many points of view: it brings Roy Eldridge on stage, that enriched (in my opinion) Ella's rendtions of songs. Also the choice of songs is moving, and Ella feels she's at home in the Festival. She was in great voice, and her rendition of SOmeone to watch over me is marvelous.

To ansewr to the doubts about the stereo stuff: the recordings were made by france TV, and they actually were in mono. A false stereo was issued, so...obviouisly in the CD was used a false stereo issue.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ella Live!, July 3, 2002

By 

ellafan (MI) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: At Juan-Les Pins (Dig) (Audio CD)

It's Ella. She's singing.It doesn't get any better than that.Not one dud on this CD.The sound might be a little raggedy,but Ella shines through above it as usual. A must for any Ella collector.