In today’s era of disposable music accessible technology, there is the generally accepted idea that anyone who is passionate about music has the ability to write their own songs. This attitude is a relatively new one historically and didn’t rear itself en mass until The Beatles and their contemporaries introduced the attainability of the shabby self contained unit of misfit teenagers. Up until then, popular music was the work of studied artisans and highly educated literati who went to prestigious schools. If you played guitar or piano, often times that skill was passed down through your family and you began studying that instrument at an extremely young age. Being a songwriter or composer meant being well versed in poetry or theory and both jobs required different temperaments. Perhaps sensing the cultural shift away from this archaic type of specialization in the late fifties, Verve Records embarked on an incredibly ambitious project that paired perhaps the best singer in recorded history with the most decorated producer/arrangers of the day and had them perform what was considered then the most beloved songs from the greatest of songwriters. The resulting time capsule became known as the “Ella Fitzgerald Songbooks” and these LPs could be considered the end of what we would call classical music. Every volume is an absolute 5 star cavalcade of ubiquitous american songcraft but here I am highlighting vol. 1 of the Gershwin collections because of the distinctive urban-chic cover art by illustrator Bernard Buffet. The REAL artist here though is Ella, effortlessly and beautifully embodying the disparate personalities and moods concocted by the pantheon of masters presented and injecting her own glowing life into each performance. Anyone who isn’t seduced by her timeless charm is probably just not taking time to listen or probably just hates music.
recordlections 