Transcending the boundaries of jazz and pop, Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Cole Porter Songbook is a classic piece of American music. Lay witness to Ella at the peak of her vocal prowess in Analog Spark’s 60th anniversary reissue, available as a 3 LP box cut from the original mono tapes by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound and plated and pressed at RTI, this is the best this album has ever sounded.

• Limited Edition
• 60th Anniversary Edition
• 3 LP 180 Gram Vinyl Box Set
• Pressed at RTI, USA
• Mastered From Original Mono Master Tapes
• Cut By Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound
• Legendary 1956 recording on 3LP for the first time

The year 1956 documented a great chapter in the history of jazz music: Norman Granz founded his third label, VERVE, managed to win Ella Fitzgerald (who has deserted DECCA) and initiated the Songbook Series which not only attracted a totally new listening public, but also established Ella’s reputation as the First Lady of Song.

The Cole Porter Songbook marked the glorious beginning of a series which finally expanded to seven titles. The recording’s success was practically a foregone conclusion. Porter had written hundreds of wonderful songs from which Granz made an initial choice of 50 songs before Ella and the bandleader and arranger Buddy Bregman finally decided upon what was, for them, the crème de la crème. The result was a list of 32 songs, all of which make easy listening not only thanks to their melodic originality and harmonic genius but particularly to the wonderful amalgamation of the text - which Porter always wrote himself - and the music. Each and every one is a classic in its own right. Bregman’s arrangements never seek to disguise the fact that all these songs originated on Broadway, and Ella proves her greatness by finding something new in such old favorites as Night and Day, I Love Paris and I Get A Kick Out Of You. And as if that wasn’t enough, Bregman’s orchestra sounds absolutely splendid.

The first of the celebrated songbooks recorded by Ella and one of the best vocal jazz albums ever made, the Cole Porter Songbook was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000, which honors recordings that have qualitative or historical significance.

The combination of Ella and Porter is irresistible and whether up-tempo or down-tempo, Ella's three-octave range soars effortlessly as she makes each song come to life. All helped by the cream of L.A. session men and Buddy Bregman's arrangement that ooze sophistication, sophistication that is way beyond his years. It is a perfect record. The record was completed after four separate days of recording on March 27.

The thirty-two tracks, Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Cole Porter Songbook, came out on May 15, 1956 as a double album. By July it had made No. 15 on the Billboard Best Sellers list after Verve had taken an extensive advertising campaign in Esquire, The New Yorker, High Fidelity and a dozen Sunday newspapers across America. In September Ella was the headliner on the annual Jazz at the Philharmonic autumn tour of America. By the end of the year the double LP was No. 18 on the list of Best Sellers for the whole year, one that was dominated by soundtrack albums.

Ella's performances here and on the other songbooks she did in the series have proven to be so brilliant and by the same token so important. And it should not go unmentioned what a clever idea it was by Granz to create the songbook series of recordings with his most prized asset on Verve Records. It was an idea he tried out with Oscar Peterson on Clef records, one of Granz's labels before he started Verve. It may have been an old idea thought of again, but it is a brilliant concept, one that the entire record industry has replicated many times since.

Track Listing:

Side A:
1. All Through The Night
2. Anything Goes
3. Miss Otis Regrets
4. Too Darn Hot
5. In The Still Of The Night

Side B:
1. I Get A Kick Out Of You
2. Do I Love You
3. Always True To You In My Fashion
4. Let's Do It
5. Just One Of Those Things

Side C:
1. Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye
2. All Of You
3. Begin The Beguine
4. Get Out Of Town
5. I Am In Love
6. From This Moment On

Side D:
1. I Love Paris
2. You Do Something To Me
3. Ridin' High
4. Easy To Love
5. It's All Right With Me

Side E:
1. Why Can't You Behave
2. What Is This Thing Called Love
3. You're The Top
4. Love For Sale
5. It's Delovely

Side F:
1. Night And Day
2. Ace In The Hole
3. So In Love
4. I've Got You Under My Skin
5. I Concentrate On You
6. Don't Fence Me In

Click here to listen to samples on YouTube.com ♫