Lost recordings of a 1967 Ella Fitzgerald concert, including her spin on the era’s pop songs such as Alfie and Music to Watch Girls By, have been rediscovered and prepared for release.
The iconic jazz vocalist was recorded live at the Oakland Coliseum, California, in June of that year, but until recently the tapes languished in the private collection of Norman Granz, the late founder of Verve Records.
That label is now releasing them for the first time, under the title The Moment of Truth: Ella at the Coliseum.
Fitzgerald performs a series of jazz song standards, including Mack the Knife, Bye Bye Blackbird, Cole Porter’s Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love) and You’ve Changed (made famous a decade earlier by Billie Holiday).
But there is also space for a wondrous, light-filled take on Alfie, the Burt Bacharach and Hal David ballad for the Michael Caine film of the same name – released a year prior to this concert, it had been a hit for Cilla Black and Dionne Warwick. A different live rendition has been previously heard – albeit as a muffled bootleg – but this is the first time a Fitzgerald version appears on record.
Another first is her version of Music To Watch Girls By. Andy Williams’s version had been on the US charts the month before Fitzgerald’s performance, while Bob Crewe’s original had been a hit the previous year. Fitzgerald’s take is spry, even bawdy, as she adds a rough hoarseness to her usually pristine vocals.
Backing her are Jimmy Jones on piano, Bob Cranshaw on bass, and Sam Woodyard on drums, plus members of Duke Ellington’s Orchestra on brass and reed instruments.
While Ellington himself does not appear, it continues the Fitzgerald-Ellington connection that had begun in 1957 with Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Song Book, which won the first ever Grammy award for best jazz performance. The pair also collaborated on 1965’s Ella at Duke’s Place, and two live albums recorded the following year: Ella and Duke at the Cote D’Azur, and The Stockholm Concert, 1966.
Unlike some unearthed live recordings that suffer from muddy sound or distant vocals, The Moment of Truth: Ella at the Coliseum is remarkably clean, having been mixed and mastered from multitracked analogue tapes.
The album is released on 28 February.
