A Swinging Blues – 1979
Ella Fitzgerald and the Count Basie Orchestra
Ella in peak form
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Ella Fitzgerald (1917-96) was on her own very high level as a jazz singer, and one can certainly make the case that she was the best jazz vocalist ever.
Certainly, when it came to scat singing, swinging, and thinking on her feet, she was impossible to top.
At the 1979 Montreux Jazz Festival, after completing a set with the Count Basie Orchestra, Ella performed a spontaneous swinging blues.
Count Basie takes the first solo, Ella quotes several songs (including “Shake That Thing”), she trades off with tenor-saxophonist Eric Dixon (who at one point quotes “A-Tisket, A-Tasket”) and trombonist Grover Mitchell (whose tonal variations with the plunger mute inspires Ella to imitate him), and she absolutely wails over the Basie band.
Ella at 62 was very much at the peak of her powers that night.
-Scott Yanow
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