Ella and Louis

Fitzgerald, Ella and Louis Armstrong

album cover

A Most Joyful Pairing

Legend has it that Louis Armstrong pioneered scat singing when, during a recording session in the late 1920s, he dropped a page of sheet music and insisted on continuing. Without the score, he ended up dishing impromptu vocal phrases in the general vicinity of the melody. Armstrong's accidental innovation became a cornerstone of jazz, a way for singers to participate in its on-the-fly invention.

Armstrong might have been the first, but Ella Fitzgerald was arguably the best of the scat singers. Her sly approach to phrasing—that poised, balletic grace, the impetuous streak that kept accompanists guessing—became the standard for vocal improvisation. No matter how technically tricky Fitzgerald's ideas were (if transcribed, some would look downright daunting), they sail out as breezy, off-the-top-of-the-head ramblings.

This 1956 meeting, which features the Oscar Peterson Trio, catches both singers in peak form, with the gravel-voiced Armstrong ambling as Fitzgerald flits around, bird-like and carefree in the upper atmosphere. The deliciously slow tempos allow each singer to stretch such familiar melodies as "The Nearness of You" well beyond the routine. Neither strives to impress. Nobody tries to reinvent the wheel. Instead, Fitzgerald and Armstrong banter and jive delightfully, enjoying what happens when everyone in the studio is locked into that pure joy frequency: The magic just emerges, all by itself.

Genre: Vocals
Released: 1956, Verve
Key Tracks: "Tenderly," "The Nearness of You," "Stars Fell on Alabama."
Catalog Choice: Ella and Louis Again
Next Stop: Ray Charles and Betty Carter
Book Page: 280

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