A previously unreleased recording of a live concert featuring the late, great jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald is due on June 24th.
Recorded at the Hollywood Bowl in August 1958, just a few months after the singer recorded Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Irving Berlin Songbook, the recording features fifteen songs from that now-classic album with accompaniment from a full orchestra. The music was conducted and arranged by Paul Weston, who also arranged and conducted the studio sessions.
The recording, of a concert that marked the only time that Ella Fitzgerald performed these iconic arrangements live with a full orchestra, was recently discovered in Verve Records founder, record producer and jazz impresario Norman Granz’s private collection.
Grammy Award-winning producer and musician Gregg Field, who played drums with Fitzgerald in her later years, mixed the live tracks from the original ¼" tapes. The album comes with liner notes about the concert and Ella Fitzgerald's Songbook series by author and music critic, Will Friedwald.
Ella at the Hollywood Bowl is available to pre-order here