Customer Reviews

At Juan-Les Pins (Dig)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This brand-new, very expensive but wonderful CD shows Ella singing great songs. The first parts of these concerts are the same, but when you listen carefully you discover Ella didn't sing exactly the same two times. Not only melodically, but also lyrically; as an example she sings in the (is rocking the right word?) Peggy Lee song `I Love Being Here With You' the first time `I love Basie swinging' twice, while she should be singing `I love Peggy singing'. But of course it's more important to enjoy Ella's singing. And you surely will. Ella uses her voice for angelic purely versions of `Summertime', `Somewhere In The Night', and `Someone to watch over me' (A beautiful Gershwin song she did first wonderfully in 1950 with pianist Ellis Larkins, who unfortunately passed away at the end of 2002), and for making growls like in Perdido and Them There Eyes. If you listen to her earlier 1960s recordings, you'll notice she started growling (I hope it's the right word in English) in this year. In her 1963 recordings she sings very softly, and on the album `Hello, Dolly!' she doesn't growl or scat at all, but in Juan-les-Pins and in Hamburg, and a year later in Stockholm, she really shouts. Maybe it was the spirit of the those days... You can see that after her 1964 success "Can't Buy Me Love" (of which the Beatles their selves thought it was an honour to have their songs sung by Ella Fitzgerald) she started another way of singing.
A nice and very cheerful song is `Cutie Pants', written by Ella's former husband Ray Brown (who also passed away at the close of 2002). Then Ella starts improvising in the Saint Louis Blues, which was originally the most boring blues you can think of before you heard Ella sing it. Then Ella scats through Perdido, which is fantastic to listen to (she sings `Roy has a face that would frighten you whaa whaa whaa', perhaps that's why Eldridge didn't enjoy working with Ella too much) but I think her scat on `Ella at the Opera House' is superior.
The second concert is mostly the same, but then the real surprises come up, like `Shiny Stockings' in which she refers to her 1963 album with Basie.
Then the crickets come up... and make Ella mix up a beautiful version of `Somewhere in the night'. She even dedicates a whole new song to those crickets, the `Cricket Song', which is funny. Then the last encore is a beautiful slow version of How high the moon, better than the one she recorded with the Frank DeVol Orchestra for the album `Hello Dolly'.
Indeed, the sound quality isn't the best. But considering it was recorded for a television show I think it's better we have recordings instead of no recordings at all. The applause is very loud and the last songs of the second concert are very bad compared to the first songs on the CD.

In my opinion this was the last concert recording on which Ella was in top form. Ella in Hamburg was NOT boring (in my opinion) but just a bit weird (on And The Angels Sing Flanagan beats too hard on the piano, and Ella's voice isn't too beautiful on the Ellington Medley, maybe it was ruined by the yelling on A Hard Day's Night).
After this, Ella's voice quality slowed down a bit, and she had to find a new style. Her first and good jazz concerts came in 1971. Then she was recording on Pablo, and she had found a new style.
After listening to these CD's you want more. perhaps they will issue Ella's 1963 Ella in Nippon concerts if there are enough requests for. One never knows.
One more thing: on `Honeysuckle Rose' Ella promises the public to do Lady be Good next day... I'm sorry, but she forgot.

This Cd was a little steep in price at just around $ 38.00 BUT worth every penny, They wouldnt be charging that amount of money if this CD wasnt the great cd it is.
They know your gonna buy it. I did and I love it.
To me Ella Fitzgerald is great. Shes the SINATRA of all female singers.
Ella reminds me of an instrument cuz her voice is one.
This CD LIVE AT Juan-Les Pins is worth the price of admission
I mean you get 2 concerts from the same venue with extras throw in, Ella Fans this is a must!