Fine and Mellow (Ella Fitzgerald album)

Fine and Mellow
Studio album by
Ella Fitzgerald
Released1979
RecordedJanuary 8, 1974
GenreJazz
Length47:31
LabelPablo
ProducerNorman Granz
Ella Fitzgerald chronology
Dream Dancing
(1978) 		Fine and Mellow
(1979) 		Digital III at Montreux
(1979)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
DownBeat[2]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings[4]
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide[3]

Fine and Mellow is an album by Ella Fitzgerald, recorded in early 1974 but not released until 1979. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album in 1980, Fitzgerald's second win in four years.

The album is subtitled Ella Fitzgerald Jams and represents a return to the informal jam sessions at the Jazz at the Philharmonic Concerts in the 1940s and 1950s. A review in Audio magazine called it "Ella's best album in years."[5]

Reception

DownBeat assigned the album 4 stars.[6] Reviewer Douglas Clark wrote, "Relaxed is the word for this recording. The session seems as informal and friendly as a Sunday afternoon cookout. The musical fare is as basic as barbeque—no exotic dishes here—but it’s all very tasty and enjoyable . . . It is as mainstream as the Mississippi. But there is a fine sense of fun here, the comfortable feeling of people who are having a good time.".[6]

Track listing

  1. "Fine and Mellow" (Billie Holiday) – 6:05
  2. "I'm Just a Lucky So-and-So" (Mack David, Duke Ellington) – 6:35
  3. "I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You" (Bing Crosby, Ned Washington, Victor Young) – 5:01
  4. "Rockin' in Rhythm" (Harry Carney, Ellington, Irving Mills) – 6:00
  5. "I'm in the Mood for Love" (Dorothy Fields, Jimmy McHugh) – 3:15
  6. "'Round Midnight" (Bernie Hanighen, Thelonious Monk, Cootie Williams) – 4:37
  7. "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" (Fields, McHugh) – 4:10
  8. "The Man I Love" (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) – 6:45
  9. "Polka Dots and Moonbeams" (Johnny Burke, Jimmy Van Heusen) – 5:03

Personnel

Recorded January 8, 1974, in Hollywood, Los Angeles:

References

  1. ^ AllMusic review
  2. ^ Clark, Douglas (February 1980). "Ella Fitzgerald: Fine and Mellow". DownBeat. Vol. 47, no. 2. p. 44.
  3. ^ Swenson, J., ed. (1985). The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. USA: Random House/Rolling Stone. pp. 78. ISBN 0-394-72643-X.
  4. ^ Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 492. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.
  5. ^ "Audio". 1980.
  6. ^ a b Clark, Douglas (February 1980). "Record Reviews". DownBeat. 47 (2): 44.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.