Ella Fitzgerald

Sunshine Of Your Love

“She has been more famous, over a longer time span, than any other female singer.” - Leonard Feather. In her extraordinary career, the “first lady of song” collaborated with the key figures of big band jazz – among others with Chick Webb and Dizzy Gillespie – won a total of 13 Grammys and was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1987. Her distinctive interpretations of jazz standards can be found in countless American songbook albums. Ella’s expanded repertoire, enthusiastic about the then burgeoning Bossa nova and pop, appeared principally on her albums from the late 1960s. As the founder of Verve, Norman Granz put together many of her live recordings in 1969 for an MPS album, so the album title was chosen as the Clapton ­classic “Sunshine of Your Love”. The album offers an impressive musical range of colours with compositions by John Lennon, Eric Clapton and Antônio Carlos Jobim on the one hand, and big band classics, such as “Give Me the Simple Life” and “Old Devil Moon” on the other. Rousingly interpreted by the Ernie Heckscher Big Band and the Tommy Flanagan Trio. Captured on AAA tape, the euphoric evenings of the series of concerts from the San Francisco Fairmont Hotel become an analogous journey through time full of jazz nostalgia.

Ella Fitzgerald - vocals
Tommy Flanagan - piano
Ed Thigpen - drums
Frank de La Rosa - bass

Produced by Norman Granz
Recording Engineer: Wally Heider

Label: MPS