Songs and related Episodes

(19) First LadyIn A Sentimental Mood   (in Japanese) 

Ella Fitzgerald(1917-1996) 


Benny Carter(1907-2003)


Here it is!! Once you listen to it, you'll know that it's too good to keep standing! She sings the melody; Do, Re, Mi, So, La , Do and Re again...and goes into the code Am11. Yes, because this is a good work by Duke Ellington!!

No doubt that everyone feel so good with Ella's attractive voice, her obbligato with the scat singing between the interlude and the climax, and her way of singing to take the song into an octave higher...how much Ella is elegant!!

This portrait was one of Dolly's collection she had kept and at last she gave it to me!! I guess this was taken in her own room. Dolly also gave me some clippings of her articles at that time
. (Click her photo and you can make it bigger)

Apollo Theatre at
West 125 Street, Harlem
In 1934 on an amateur contest at Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York, she sang "Judy" originally sung by her idol Connee Boswell, and she got the first prize and won 25 dollars. It was too big money for her when she was seventeen and no better than homeless.

At that day Benny Carter was listening to her song among the audience and told Chick Webb about her. Next year she started singing for the Chick Webb Orchestra exclusively. She had the first recording in 1937, and had big hits with "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" and "Undecided". Benny Carter is the eldest jazz musician now, and on the contrary Chick Webb passed away at the age of 34.

After eight years of Ella's win, Sarah Vaughan won the first prize at the same place Apollo Theater. And the next year Sarah made a debut in Earl Hines Orchestra,

Legendary alto saxophone player, jazz composer and big band leader Benny Carter has died at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles

In a career that spanned seven decades, Carter played with such jazz luminaries as pianist Willie "The Lion" Smith, Fats Waller, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzie Gillespie, and even traded notes with amateur saxophonist President Bill Clinton at the White House.

translated by Yoshie Kishida

Look at this video clip!

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=KX4HJ9ito3I


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