Sunshine of Your Love (Remastered) Ella Fitzgerald

• 1Hey Jude03:50
• 2Sunshine of Your Love03:19
• 3This Girl's in Love with You04:27
• 4Watch What Happens03:57
• 5Alright Okay You Win03:48
• 6Give Me the Simple Life02:01
• 7Useless Landscape05:10
• 8Old Devil Moon04:17
• 9Don'cha Go Way Mad03:34
• 10A House Is Not a Home04:11
• 11Trouble Is a Man04:11
• 12Love You Madly03:06
• Total Runtime45:51

Info for Sunshine of Your Love (Remastered)

Sunshine of Your Love is a 1969 live album by Ella Fitzgerald. Recorded at the Venetian Room, The Fairmont San Francisco, in October 1968. The main body of works performed here are contemporary pop songs from the late 1960s. Originally released on the German found jazz label MPS Records the album was re-issued on CD, with alternative artwork, in 1996 by Verve Records.

Ella Fitzgerald singing Eric Clapton’s “Sunshine of Your Love”, or the Beatles’ “Hey Jude”? Something of a revelation for those who know Fitzgerald as purely a jazz singer and haven’t had the pleasure to listen to her MPS live recording “Sunshine of Your Love”, yet. Ella’s pristine clarity of earlier years, now tinged with a throaty worldliness, is a perfect foil to her choices from the world of rock and pop. It also adds new depth to such standards as “Give Me the Simple Life”, “Old Devil Moon”, and Burt Bachrach’s “A House is Not a Home”. Recorded “live”, the album is divided into a big band set and Ella with her long-time accompaniment, the Tommy Flanagan trio. Pianist Flanagan is simply one of the all-time greats. After listening to this, how can you not be a fan of Ella’s?

This is an album for which I recorded Ella Fitzgerald live at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. I edited the usual night-club patter by the artist, audience conversation, and, particularly, applause as sharply as possible. I think in today’s context having an LP cluttered and consumed by extraneous matter is unworkable; people who buy records want the artist to get on with it and go from one number to the next as quickly as possible. Obviously, beginning and ending applause were unavoidable, but at least the action of Ella’s routine wasn’t appreciably retarded. The advantage of recording before a live audience for an artist like Ella is immense because of the emotional Iift she receives from an audience – so I suggest that in this album you have the best of both worlds: optimum result by the artist and as near studio conditions as possible." (Norman Granz)

"During her long career, every once in awhile Ella Fitzgerald would attempt to "get with it" and record contemporary pop tunes. In 1968 for a live concert with a big band and the Tommy Flanagan Trio, the First Lady of the American Song did what she could with such unsuitable material as "Hey Jude," "Sunshine of Your Love," "Watch What Happens" and "A House Is Not a Home." The results (despite her sincerity) sometime borders on the embarassing; there is no way anyone can swing "Hey Jude." A few of the other numbers (particularly "Give Me the Simple Life," "Old Devil Moon" and "Love You Madly") are of a higher quality but when Ella tries to turn "Alright, Okay, You Win" into funk, it is time to switch records." (Scott Yanow, AMG)

Ella Fitzgerald, vocals
Tommy Flanagan, piano, conductor
Frank DeLaRosa, double bass
Ed Thigpen, drums
Marty Paich, arranger (tracks 1, 2, 5)
Frank De Vol, arranger (track 3)
Dee Carson, arranger (track 4)
Bill Holman, arranger (track 6)
Ernie Heckscher, bandleader
Allen Smith, trumpet (tracks 1-6)
Ernie Hecksher's Big Band (tracks 1-6)
Tommy Flanagan Trio (tracks 7-12)

Engineered by Wally Heider
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.