I have just watched a television programme! That may not be much to you but for me it is very remarkable. You see, I don't watch TV, I glimpse it, catch it from the corner of my eye, stumble upon it in the listings as I mechanically turn the pages of the little 'Memsahib's' Daily Mail - which is how I spotted this particular programme. It was on the life and times of Ella Fitzgerald. Regular readers will groan having read my pathetic attempt at literary criticism and who sense a musical critique approaching from a man who doesn't know the difference between a crotchet and a quaver! I shall ignore your pleadings because I really must say something about this woman.
Her voice was like her - big, rhythmic and deep brown - like 'Bubbling Brown Sugar'! As one of the participants said, she epitomised, indeed, she enveloped, virtually the whole history of jazz beginning in downtown Harlem with pre-war swing, then moving into the bebop era of the mid-forties with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and then on to add lustre (an almost impossible task, surely) to the lyrics of Cole Porter and Johny Mercer. She was one of those performers where you catch yourself smiling halfway through a song because of her sheer artistry. Fitzgerald and Sinatra, the yin and yang of jazz and popular music who raised it to an art form.
Thanks for the memory . . .
Comments