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MUSIC MONDAY: Born #OnThisDay in 1917 — “First Lady of Song” Ella Fitzgerald (LISTEN)

MUSIC MONDAY: Born #OnThisDay in 1917 — “First Lady of Song” Ella Fitzgerald (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 25, 2022

[Photo: Ella Fitzgerald via ellafitzgerald.com]

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

GBN is pulling a trifecta today — celebrating #MusicMonday, #JazzAppreciationMonth, and dropping in on absolutely one of the best singers past, present — or ever — Ella Fitzgerald!

Born 105 years ago #OnThisDay, through her stunningly timeless gifts (and vast catalog), Ella Fitzgerald is still surprising and delighting music lovers and casual fans alike.

To read about her, read on. To hear about her, press PLAY:

[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:

Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Monday, April 25th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Today, we offer a quote from the “First Lady of Song” born 105 years ago on this date, the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald.

“The only thing better than singing is more singing.”

Born in 1917 in Newport News, Virginia, Ella Fitzgerald’s earliest artistic ambitions were to become a dancer.

When the loss of her mother when she was 15 lead to a relocation to Harlem to live with her aunt and stints in an orphanage and a state reformatory school for girls, Fitzgerald hustled to get by on the streets and at 17 took her terpsichorean talents to Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater.

But when she saw two sisters with a dance act go on before her and wow the crowd, Ella didn’t think she could compete so she switched up her talent from dancing to singing and took to the stage to sing “Judy” and “The Object of My Affection” and won first prize in 1934.

Although she didn’t record either at the time, in 1968 Ella gave “The Object of My Affection” another onstage go when she sang it for her Live At Chautauqua, Volume 1 LP:

[Excerpt from “The Object of My Affection”]

Ella’s Amateur night win lead to an audition with Chick Webb to become the girl singer in his orchestra, and one of the best collaborations between bandleader and singer in the swing era.

Webb and Ella had hits with “Love and Kisses,” “(If You Can’t Sing It) You’ll Have to Swing It (Mr. Paganini)” and the classic turn on a nursery rhyme co-written by Ella that become of the best-selling songs in it’s decade, “A Tisket, A Tasket”:

[Excerpt from “A Tisket, A Tasket”]

Even as Chick Webb took the young Ella under his wing, his serious health challenges ended his life way too soon in 1939.

Ella stepped up and lead and toured with the orchestra for a few more years until she went solo as jazz turned increasingly towards the newer sounds of bebop.

It was around this time, while working with Dizzy Gillespie and his band, Ella developed her scat singing style, lauded on songs such as “Oh, Lady Be Good” and “Flying Home”:

[Excerpt from “Flying Home”]

Ella not only navigated and interpreted jazz standards with dazzling dexterity and clarity, during her heyday, she, like her quote implied, sang and sang and sang some more.

Ella took on several of America’s most popular composers with her unparalleled series of “songbooks,” where she devoted entire albums to covering the songs of Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Rodgers and Hart, Johnny Mercer, Jerome Kern and Irving Berlin.

You can’t go wrong with any of these incredible recordings, so I’ll share a personal favorite from Ella Sings Gershwin – Ella’s plaintively tender version of “Someone to Watch Over Me”:

[Excerpt of “Someone to Watch Over Me”]

Ella also paired up with jazz royalty, recording an album with Count Basie, three with Louis Armstrong, four with guitarist Joe Pass and four with Duke Ellington, one which included her version of – I can’t think of any better word than “banging” because Ella just goes so hard in “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing”:

[Excerpt of “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing”]

From big band to bebop to Broadway, standards, pop and R&B, throughout her career, Ella Fitzgerald recorded over 200 albums and 2,000 songs.

Because frankly, with a voice like hers, the only thing better than Ella singing was more Ella singing. I’m going to put a link to a much longer Ella playlist in the show notes, but let’s hear from her one more time, in 1977, when one of her biggest fans, Stevie Wonder, lovingly sings her praises right before she helps him sing his song:

[Excerpt of “You Are the Sunshine Of My Life”]

To learn more about Ella Fitzgerald, watch the 2019 documentary Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things now streaming on Netflix, the 1999 American Masters biography on Ella called Something To Live For currently posted on YouTube, read ELLA: A Biography of the Legendary Ella Fitzgerald by Geoffrey Mark from 2018, Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography of the First Lady of Jazz by Stuart Nicholson from 1994.Watch incredible clips of her on YouTube performing with Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra and Count Basie.

And of course, buy or stream as much of her music as you can. Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and in the episodes full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.

Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

All excerpts of Ella Fitzgerald’s music are included under Fair Use.

If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

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GBN’s MERRY MONTH OF STEVIE: Stevie Wonder’s “Talking Book” Speaks Again Through Its Covers (LISTEN)

GBN’s MERRY MONTH OF STEVIE: Stevie Wonder’s “Talking Book” Speaks Again Through Its Covers (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on May 21, 2020

by Jeff Meier (FB: Jeff.Meier.90)

On a previous post, GBN presented a playlist featuring all cover versions (remakes) from Stevie Wonder‘s legendary album “Songs in the Key of Life.”

With today’s playlist, from our month of playlists devoted to Stevie Wonder in honor of his 70th birthday, we take the same approach to Stevie’s 1972 watershed album, “Talking Book.” “Talking Book” is at the front end of Stevie’s period of immense creativity in the 1970s.

Still in his early 20s, and having won creative freedom over his work in his newest Motown contract, he created a multi-textured album filled with funk rhythms, smooth soul, and swinging pop – all merged together into one genius record that still sounds great today. (To hear NPR’s “Story of Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book” segment, click here.)

The album kicks off with the elegant “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” – which has become Stevie’s most-covered song, with over 250 versions recorded by other artists through the years according to SecondHandSongs.com (a website devoted to cover songs).

Many of those versions are similar. As evidence of Stevie’s complete crossover popularity by that point in his career, ‘Sunshine’ actually became an easy listening staple, performed by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Johnny Mathis to Liza Minnelli – and also by Jim Nabors, Vicki Lawrence, Brigitte Bardot and Englebert Humperdinck.

Opening with alternative rocker Jack White‘s version of that standard, our goal is to give you a playlist that feels both familiar to your memories of the original album, but also stretches musically to a few new places.

We’ve mixed in rock, easy listening, funk, dance, a cappella, jazz, Brazilian by artists as diverse as Macy Gray, Rufus, Michael Bublé and Sergio Mendes. We’ve placed the songs in their original album order, and have limited each song to one version – and each covering artist to only one track.

The list concludes with one of the newest Stevie Wonder covers – actress Da’Vine Joy Randolph beautifully covers “I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)” for the soundtrack to “High Fidelity,” the new Hulu series in which she co-stars. Set around the vinyl-obsessed employees of a small independent record store, the choice to cover Stevie circa 2020 demonstrates that the music faithful still remain true believers in the sounds of Mr. Wonder.

Enjoy!

[spotifyplaybutton play=”spotify:playlist:2gtNgYAOsiwQyGzH1oB0gN”/]

Born on This Day in 1915: Legendary Jazz and Blues Singer Billie Holiday (LISTEN)

Born on This Day in 1915: Legendary Jazz and Blues Singer Billie Holiday (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 7, 2020

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

GBN delights in the opportunity to commemorate the birth of Billie Holiday, one of America’s most talented singing artists, on what would have been her 105th birthday.

Born Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915 and raised primarily in Baltimore, MD, Holiday is best known for her signature songs “God Bless The Child,” which she co-wrote with Arthur Herzog, Jr. and “Strange Fruit,” the anti-lynching protest song she first recorded in 1939.

Holiday is also well-regarded by musicians and music enthusiasts alike as a masterful interpreter of jazz and pop standards with instrumentalist-like phrasing, and was a major influence on popular singers such as Carmen McRae, Frank Sinatra, and Joni Mitchell.

Although Holiday’s music had its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s, current generations got a chance to connect with Holiday’s genius and story through Audra McDonald‘s Tony-winning portrayal of her in the 2014 Broadway musical Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill.

Slightly older generations may have become acquainted with Holiday through the 1972 film Lady Sings The Blues, which garnered Diana Ross an Academy Award nomination for the title role.

Billie Holiday Statue (photo via flikr.com)

A statue of Holiday by sculptor James Earl Reid was erected in her hometown of Baltimore in 1985 and rededicated in 2009 on a majestic granite pedestal to better capture the significance of her stature.

To read more about Billie Holiday’s life and music, there are fortunately several choices, such as her 1956 autobiography Lady Sings The Blues (as told to William Dufty), Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday by Robert O’Meally, With Billie by Julia Blackburn, Billie Holiday: Wishing on the Moon by Donald Clarke and Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Cafe Society, And An Early Cry For Civil Rights by David Margolick.

Above you can watch Lady Day in 1957 on CBS’ The Sound of Jazz performing “Fine and Mellow,” the blues standard she wrote and first recorded in 1939, with Jazz All Stars such as Lester “Prez” Young, Ben Webster, Roy Eldridge, Gerry Mulligan, Milt Hinton and Mal Waldron.

Below you can experience a comprehensive compilation of Billie Holiday’s recordings in a Spotify playlist called Loving Lady Day: The Best of Billie Holiday. Click through to follow and/or download. Enjoy!

 

Usher Becomes 1st Artist to Curate Music for Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks

By goodblacknews on May 11, 2013

Recording artist Usher attends NBC's "The Voice" Season 4 Red Carpet Event at the House of Blues Sunset Strip on May 8, 2013 in West Hollywood
Usher will collaborate with Macy’s to curate the concept, music and design for the Macy’s 4th of July fireworks show, which will be launched from barges off Manhattan.
It’s the first time the company has worked with an artist on the concept for its annual show, Macy’s said Thursday.
Usher will score the music for “It Begins With a Spark,” which will feature his songs, as well as songs from Rihanna, Swedish House Mafia, Jimi Hendrix and Frank Sinatra.
He will also provide visual design cues and direction for the pyrotechnics that are choreographed to the musical score.
The 37th annual Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks display will air after the annual concert on NBC.
article via eurweb.com