Norman Granz was an American jazz record producer and concert promoter. He founded the record labels Clef, Norgran, Down Home, Verve, and Pablo and the Jazz at the Philharmonic concert series. Granz was acknowledged as "the most successful impresario in the history of jazz". He was also a champion of racial equality, insisting, for example, on integrating audiences at concerts he promoted.
Ella Jane Fitzgerald was an American singer, songwriter and composer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, intonation, absolute pitch, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.
"Mack the Knife" or "The Ballad of Mack the Knife" is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their 1928 music drama The Threepenny Opera. The song tells of a knife-wielding criminal of the London underworld from the musical named Macheath, the "Mack the Knife" of the title.
Verve Records is an active American record label owned by Universal Music Group (UMG). Founded in 1956 by Norman Granz, the label is home to the world's largest jazz catalogue, which includes recordings by artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Cal Tjader, Nina Simone, Stan Getz, Bill Evans, Billie Holiday, Oscar Peterson, Jon Batiste, and Diana Krall among others as well as a diverse mix of other recordings that fall outside of jazz including albums from disparate artists like the Velvet Underground, Kurt Vile, Arooj Aftab, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention and many more. It absorbed the catalogues of Granz's earlier label, Clef Records, founded in 1946; Norgran Records, founded in 1953; and material which was previously licensed to Mercury Records.
Gordon Hill Jenkins was an American arranger, composer, and pianist who was influential in popular music in the 1940s and 1950s. Jenkins worked with The Andrews Sisters, Johnny Cash, The Weavers, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Judy Garland, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, Harry Nilsson, Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald.
Lady in Satin is an album by the jazz singer Billie Holiday released in 1958 on Columbia Records, catalogue CL 1157 in mono and CS 8048 in stereo. It is the penultimate album completed by the singer, and the last to be released in her lifetime. Her final album, Last Recording, was recorded in March 1959, and released just after her death. The original album was produced by Irving Townsend and engineered by Fred Plaut.
Ella in Rome: The Birthday Concert is a live album by Ella Fitzgerald, with a jazz trio led by Lou Levy, and also featuring the Oscar Peterson trio. Recorded in 1958, it was released thirty years later.
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book is a 1956 studio double album by American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, accompanied by a studio orchestra conducted and arranged by Buddy Bregman, focusing on the songs of Cole Porter. It is the first in a series of thematic LPs devoted to great American songwriters that Fitzgerald recorded from 1956 to 1964.
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book is a box set by American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald that contains songs by George and Ira Gershwin with arrangements by Nelson Riddle. It was produced by Norman Granz, Fitzgerald's manager and the founder of Verve Records. Fifty-nine songs were recorded in the span of eight months in 1959. It is one of the eight album releases comprising what is possibly Fitzgerald's greatest musical legacy: Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Complete American Songbook, in which she recorded, with top arrangers and musicians, a comprehensive collection of both well-known and obscure songs from the Great American Songbook canon, written by the likes of Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hart, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, George and Ira Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, and Johnny Mercer.
Ella is a 1969 studio album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald and the first of two albums she recorded for the Warner Bros. owned Reprise label. This album continues the theme set on Fitzgerald's previous album, consisting in the main part of cover versions of popular songs from the late 1960s. The production of this recording was in the hands of Richard Perry, who had joined the Reprise label in 1967. Perry later went on the produce albums by Barbra Streisand and Diana Ross. The album was re-issued on CD with alternative artwork, in 1989. Released together on one CD with Ella's final album recorded for Reprise label, Things Ain't What They Used to Be .
Ella and Louis is a studio album by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, accompanied by the Oscar Peterson Quartet, released in October 1956. Having previously collaborated in the late 1940s for the Decca label, this was the first of three albums that Fitzgerald and Armstrong were to record together for Verve Records, later followed by 1957's Ella and Louis Again and 1959's Porgy and Bess.
"It Might as Well Be Spring" is a song from the 1945 film State Fair. which features the only original film score by the songwriting team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. "It Might as Well Be Spring" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for that year.
"The Nearness of You" is a popular song written in 1937 by Hoagy Carmichael with lyrics by Ned Washington. Intended for an unproduced Paramount film titled Romance In The Rough, the studio's publishing division Famous Music reregistered and published the song in 1940. It was first recorded by Chick Bullock and his Orchestra on Vocalion. Despite numerous accounts to the contrary, the song was never scheduled for and does not appear in the 1938 Paramount film Romance in the Dark.
"Hallelujah I Love Her So" is a single by American musician Ray Charles. The rhythm and blues song was written and released by Charles in 1956 on the Atlantic label, and in 1957 it was included on his self-titled debut LP, also released on Atlantic. The song peaked at number five on the Billboard R&B chart. It is loosely based on 'Get It Over Baby' by Ike Turner (1953).
This is the complete discography of the main 12-inch (8000) series of LPs issued by Verve Records, a label founded in 1956 by producer Norman Granz in Los Angeles, California. Alongside new sessions Granz re-released many of the recordings of his earlier labels Clef and Norgran on Verve.
"We Three " is a ballad published in 1939 by Nelson Cogane, Sammy Mysels and Dick Robertson. It was a hit song in 1940 for both The Ink Spots on Decca and Frank Sinatra with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra on RCA Victor, both versions reaching No. 3 in Billboard in December.
The collaborations between Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong have attracted much attention over the years. The artists were both widely known icons not just in the areas of big band, jazz, and swing music but across 20th century popular music in general. The two African-American musicians produced three official releases together in Ella and Louis (1956), Ella and Louis Again (1957), and Porgy and Bess (1959). Each release earned both commercial and critical success. As well, tracks related to those albums have also appeared in various forms in multi-artist collections and other such records.
"I'm Making Believe" is a 1944 song composed by James V. Monaco with lyrics by Mack Gordon. The song first appeared in the film Sweet and Low-Down; the performance by Benny Goodman and His Orchestra was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. The version recorded by the Ink Spots and Ella Fitzgerald topped The Billboard's National Best Selling Retail Records chart for two weeks in 1944. Their version had sold over one million copies by the time of Fitzgerald's death in 1996.
"Knock Me a Kiss" is a song written by Mike Jackson (music) and Andy Razaf (lyrics). It was performed by Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five, recorded in November 1941, and released on the Decca label. The B-side was "I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town".
The singles discography of American singer Ella Fitzgerald contains 166 singles and six other charting songs. Her first recordings were collaborations with orchestras, beginning with the charting song "All My Life" with Teddy Wilson. It was followed by her first US top ten entry called "My Melancholy Baby". She also made the US charts three times under the title Ella Fitzgerald and Her Savoy Eight. Fitzgerald then collaborated with Chick Webb and His Orchestra, topping the US charts in 1938 with "A-Tisket, A-Tasket". She reached the top ten three more times with Webb, including the top five single "F.D.R. Jones". With her own orchestra, Fitzgerald reached the top ten in 1939 with "I Want the Waiter " and in 1940 with "Five O'Clock Whistle".
