Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie! (Remastered) Ella Fitzgerald

• 1 A Night In Tunisia 04:08
• 2 You're My Thrill 03:38
• 3 My Reverie 03:18
• 4 Stella By Starlight 03:17
• 5 Round Midnight 03:28
• 6 Jersey Bounce 03:34
• 7 Signing Off 03:47
• 8 Cry Me A River 04:14
• 9 This Year's Kisses 02:18
• 10 Good Morning Heartache 04:20
• 11 (I Was) Born To Be Blue 02:42
• 12 Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie! 02:43
• 13 Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most 06:16
• 14 Music Goes Round And Around 02:29
• 15 The One I Love Belongs To Somebody Else 02:15
• 16 I Got A Guy 03:44
• 17 This Could Be The Start Of Something Big 02:43
• Total Runtime 58:54

Info for Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie! (Remastered)

Seventeen numbers from the heyday of swing, composed sometime between 1930 and 1945 - played and sung time and time again in ballrooms, or on the radio to advertise biscuits or war bonds, were recorded by Ella in completely new and personal interpretations in 1961. No one should be put off by the rather unfortunate cover. Clap Hands... is absolutely top notch as regards musicality, perfect recording quality, superb accompaniment by a small ensemble, with room for improvisations; it offers a wonderful opportunity to discover something new in these evergreens, despite the occasionally banal lyrics. The songs of this recording conjure up bygone days, with listeners in the 21st century being offered a highly personal homage to one of the most successful periods in the 100-year history of jazz.

Many of the Ella Fitzgerald CDs in print are compilations and recently discovered live recordings, which makes this reissue with bonus tracks of a 1961 album that much more interesting. Produced by Norman Granz, this is a small-combo session with occasional and unobtrusive strings. Though Fitzgerald got her start as a big-band singer, smaller and more intimate combos fit her rich, velvety voice better than big brassy arrangements.

Opening with Dizzy Gillespie's classic 'Night in Tunisia,' which features some outstanding scatting, „Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie“ continues in that bop-oriented vein, with versions of 'Stella By Starlight' and Monk's ''Round Midnight.' The highest point on the album, though, is a stunning, stripped-down version of 'Cry Me a River.' The three bonus tracks, recorded during these sessions, are very good, but not revelatory, though the saucy 'I Got a Guy' is swinging fun.

Ella Fitzgerald, vocals
Lou Levy, piano
Herb Ellis, guitar
Joe Mondragon, bass
Wilfred Middlebrooks, bass
Stan Levey, drums
Gus Johnson, drums

Recorded in Los Angeles, California on June 22-23, 1961
Produced by Norman Granz

Digitally remastered

Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996)
was, along with Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday, one of the most important vocalists to emerge from the big-band era. Her style is marked by a sunny outlook, a girlish innocence, and a virtuoso command of her voice.

Fitzgerald was born out of wedlock in Newport News, Virginia, to a laundress mother and a father who disappeared when she was three years old. Along with her mother and her mother’s new boyfriend who functioned as a stepfather, she soon moved to Yonkers, New York, where she began her schooling. Around the third grade she started dancing, a pursuit that became almost an obsession. In 1932, when she was fifteen, her mother died suddenly of a heart attack. Her stepfather treated her badly, but an aunt took the teenager to live with her in Harlem. This arrangement did not last long; Fitzgerald ran away in 1934 to live on the streets. Late that year she won a talent contest at the Apollo Theater; she had entered as a dancer, but nervousness caused her to sing instead. Several months later she joined drummer Chick Webb’s big band, where she mostly sang novelties like 'Vote for Mr. Rhythm'. In 1938 she recorded 'A-Tisket, A-Tasket', her own adaptation of a turn-of-the-century nursery rhyme, which took the country by storm and eventually sold a million copies. When Webb died in 1939 the band’s management installed Fitzgerald as leader.

In 1942 the band broke up and Fitzgerald became a single act, touring with various other popular names of the day. She also became interested in scat singing and the newly emerging style known as bebop, and in 1945 she recorded a landmark version of 'Flying Home.' Several tours with the Dizzy Gillespie band also contributed to her assimilation of the bebop style.

In the late 1940s Fitzgerald began to tour with the Jazz at the Philharmonic troupe, working with such leading musicians as saxophonist Lester Young, trumpeter Roy Eldridge, pianist Oscar Peterson, and bassist Ray Brown, to whom she was married for four years. JATP impresario Norman Granz became increasingly influential in her career, and in 1953 he became her manager.

Three years after that he became her record producer as well, recording her on his own Verve label. He wasted little time in having Fitzgerald record a double album of Cole Porter songs. Fitzgerald made many wonderful albums for Verve in the following decade, but the six songbooks occupy a special place in her discography. They were instrumental in expanding Fitzgerald’s appeal beyond that of a 'jazz singer' and creating a demand for her in venues not usually open to jazz artists.

For die-hard jazz fans, though, the well-polished jewels of the songbook series lack the raw energy of Fitzgerald’s live performances. Happily, Granz released several landmark concert albums by her as well. Especially exciting was a 1960 Berlin concert, which featured an electrifying performance of an impromptu take on 'Mack the Knife,' which became a Top 30 single. Fitzgerald usually performed with a trio or quartet, but there were also appearances with larger groups, such as the Duke Ellington and Count Basie orchestras. By the 1960s Fitzgerald had become wealthy enough to retire, but the love of performing drove her on — she appeared regularly until just a couple of years before her death in 1996. Sidemen came and went, but except when health problems intervened she performed as much as humanly possible, sometimes singing concerts in two different cities in one day. Source: Verve Music (Phil Bailey). Excerpted from Ken Burns’ Jazz: The Definitive Ella Fitzgerald

This album contains no booklet.