Dr. Bob Prescribes Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington

My Music History Monday post back on June 15, 2020, marked the death on June 15, 1996, of the the “First Lady of Song,” the “Queen of Jazz,” “Lady Ella”: of Ella Jane Fitzgerald, at the age of 79.  

Music History Monday for April 29, 2024 (just last week!), marked the birth of “The Duke”: Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, on April 29, 1899.

Ella and Duke.  They knew each other, loved each other, and performed and recorded music together for half a century.  They were, the cliché, be damned, a musical marriage made in heaven.  And thus, in my self-proclaimed “Year of Popular American Song,” this album of songs associated with Duke Ellington – which, BTW, is one of the greatest recordings ever made (no hyperbole that; just fact) – just screams to be examined and prescribed.  

And so we shall.

Ella and Duke Up Close and Personal

I would introduce you all to Leonard Geoffrey Feather (1914-1994). He was a London-born jazz pianist, composer, and producer, who nevertheless is best known today for his books and essays about jazz and his jazz criticism (he was the chief jazz critic for the Los Angeles Times from the 1960s until his death in 1994).

Feather wrote an extended essay for the liner notes of the original 1957 release of Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook.  That essay was written as a true insider, as someone who personally knew (and worshipped) Ellington and Fitzgerald, and who travelled in the same rarified jazz circles as did they.  As such, Feather’s essay does not recount history from afar but rather, it reports contemporary events from first person observations.  …