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whileiamdying · 1 year

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ELLA FITZGERALD: The Best of the Songbooks: The Ballads

Even before Ella Fitzgerald became the First Lady of Memorex, the image prevailed of a finger-snapping, high-spirited vocal acrobat, spewing out bop syllables and falsetto notes with ease. Maybe that's fitting; after all, Ella will always be remembered for the bottomless joy she shared so generously with audiences, not to mention a youthfulness that seemed fueled by her sheer love of life.

This collection explores an undervalued side of her legacy: the one in which the tempo dropped, and her joy grew reflective or turned into grief. Ella's ballad singing entered its prime in 1956, when she recorded her double album Cole Porter songbook. Within a month that collection had found its way into 100,000 homes, turning her from a jazz cult figure into a pop icon. Seven more songbooks followed, devoted to Rodgers and Hart, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, the Gershwins, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, and Johnny Mercer - all told, a 245-song study of the music to which a whole country had grown up, danced, and fallen in love.

That era had ended by the time the series began, but the booming economy of the postwar years had made plenty of money available for projects like this. As a result, Ella got to work with the arrangers and musicians of her dreams. "I've always wanted to sing with lots of strings," she said happily after one session. The songbooks contain a wealth of great love songs to do those strings justice, not to mention the services of the ideal singer. Throughout her career Ella's ballads were often dismissed as lightweight; here are sixteen to the contrary. In each of them she displays her sensitive, conversational phrasing; flawless diction; endearing, childlike warmth; and utter simplicity of expression. Her melodic departures here are few but invariably memorable; she honors both the writers and her own integrity as a jazz artist.

Even at age forty-seven, when she recorded her last songbook for Verve, hers was not a voice of profound, lived-in experience. But many tantalizing ripples appear on its surface - a darkening of tone, the hint of a sob - that give her songs of love and heartbreak their credibility. So it is with these recordings, which offer convincing proof that Ella Fitzgerald was one of the most underrated ballad singers of her generation.

🎵 Oh, Lady Be Good!

This record did the most to establish Ella's jazz image - a 1947 bop vocal landmark for Decca that found her racing through the lyric on her way to a breakneck scat solo. In the George and Ira Gershwin songbook, however, she and Nelson Riddle brought unexpected meaning to this originally breezy show tune. Her final "Oh, please have some pity/l'm all alone in this big city", sung with a slight catch in the throat, captures all the poignance that made her ballads so affecting.

🎵 I'm Old Fashioned

Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth danced on a moonlit terrace to this song in the 1942 film You Were Never Lovelier. It had long been a standard by 1963, when Ella and Riddle featured it in the Kern songbook. With the help of Paul Smith and his trio, Ella swings even at a near-ballad tempo.

🎵 Laura

From the Johnny Mercer collection comes an ethereal Riddle arrangement of the theme from Laura, Otto Preminger's 1944 film noir. The chart hangs upon a repetitive ascending phrase, as hypnotic as the ticking grandfather clock in the climactic scene. Preminger had initially chosen "Sophisticated Lady" to lead the score, but his composer David Raksin insisted that the title character - played by the ravishing Gene Tierney - needed a new theme. Challenged to write something over the weekend, a desperate Raksin made dozens of failed attempts. Not until the final hours did the opening phrase come to him; by morning he had his song. Mercer later added a dreamlike lyric, which Ella reads immaculately.

🎵 Day-Dream

In her darkest voice, Ella sings a ballad composed in 1940 by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. The surreal lyric, full of ghostlike images and mounting anxiety, is by John Latouche. As usual, Ella's phrasing is a model of clarity; listen to her reading of the potentially sing-songy "Don't know the time/Lordy, I'm in a daze". Johnny Hodges supplies the alto saxophone solo.

🎵 Easy to Love

This quartet arrangement provides a welcome relief from the desultory band charts that mar Ella's Cole Porter set. "Easy to Love" was first heard in the 1936 film Born to Dance, where Jimmy Stewart sang it to Eleanor Powell as they strolled through Central Park. It's a natural for Ella, who turns it into jazz with minimal improvisation. Years later, in a terse down beat interview, Porter named Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong as the two jazz singers whose treatment of his work didn't offend him.

🎵 It Was Written in the Stars

The combination of Ella's cloudless voice and a somber lyric could yield surprising results. So it is with this clutching, neurotic love song, written by Harold Arlen and Leo Robin for the 1948 film noir Casbah. Arranger Walter Sheets places Ella amid a weighty brass section and a silvery, translucent layer of strings, echoing the irony of such lines as "It was written in the skies/That the heart and not the eyes/ Shall see".

🎵 How Long Has This Been Going On?

This exquisite ballad of romantic discovery was first heard in the 1928 Gershwin musical Rosalie; nearly thirty years later Audrey Hepburn gave it new life in the movie Funny Face. Its sexual overtones don't escape Ella, who grows especially misty when she sings, "There were chills up my spine/And some thrills I can't define"

🎵 Let's Begin

Ella makes an unlikely seductress in this Jerome Kern-Otto Harbach song from Roberta, as she boldly confronts the tease who won't deliver. Dick Nash's trombone solo is a reminder of the jazz content that Nelson Riddle brought to these charts, most of which were aimed at) the pop market.

🎵 Now It Can Be Told

The most verbally concise of the classic pop composers could also be the most luxuriously romantic, as Irving Berlin proved with this song. Introduced by Alice Faye in the 1938 film Alexander's Ragtime Band, it elevates a new love to the level of \majesty. Even an unadorned reading such as this one bears Ella's unmistakable stamp; witness her airy descent on her repeat of the phrase "as an inspiration" or her slide up to the final "told". Here and throughout the Berlin songbook, Paul Weston's Hollywood-style strings rival Nelson Riddle's for pure lushness.

🎵 There's a Small Hotel

From Ella's Rodgers and Hart collection comes this fantasy for young lovers, written for On Your Toes in 1936. Discussing that second songbook, Ella said: "We didn't have to rush it like we did the Cole Porter, so I think the whole thing is more relaxed." Richard Rodgers approved: "Whatever it is Ella does to my songs, they sound better."

🎵 Do Nothing till You Hear from Me

A highlight of the small-group sessions that comprise half of the Ellington set, this usually hasty song of denial becomes as calm and reassuring as a lullaby in Ella's hands. Starting with the rare verse, she and an all-star sextet give this Ellington-Bob Russell gem a loving eight-minute examination. Ben Webster and Stuff Smith offer leisurely solos.

🎵 I’ll Wind (You're Blowin' Me No Good)

This tale of trouble afoot was written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler for the Cotton Club Parade of 1934. Ella sings it as dejectedly as a child left out in the cold. The plush settings that Riddle and Weston had given her are gone, replaced by dark-hued horns and icy strings.

🎵 You're Laughing at Me

"Nothing hurts like young love that's been slapped in the face," said the great café singer (and Fitzgerald favorite) Mabel Mercer in 1975. Ella understood that, as did Irving Berlin. This song, which Dick Powell sang in the 1937 film On the Avenue, sums up the pain of a love dismissed as a joke: "While I'm crying for you/You're laughing at me."

🎵 A Ship Without a Sail

No lyricist caught the heartache of broken illusions better than Lorenz Hart, who spent his life yearning for the love he wrote about so knowingly. Rodgers and Hart's score for the 1929 musical Heads Up! featured this ballad about a soul much too tender to have "a faded dream to sell."

🎵 Travlin' Light

This world-weary torch song by Jimmy Mundy, Trummy Young, and Johnny Mercer made its first appearance on a Capitol 78 in1942. Its label reads: "Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra; vocal chorus by Lady Day". Why Miss Holiday was billed by her nickname is still a mystery, but 1 thereafter the song belonged to r her. It may seem like an ambitious choice for Ella, but it clearly strikes a meaningful chord in her. Mercer's spare lyric leaves much unsaid but not unfelt: "No one to see/l'm free as the breeze/No one but me/And my memories."

🎵 This Time the Dream's on

Arlen and Mercer wrote this song for Blues in the Night, a 1941 movie musical. A brave ballad about biding one's time for a hopeless dream, it contains one of the more heartbreaking images in popular song: "It would be fun/To be certain that I'm the one/To know that I at least supply the shoulder you cry upon". Ella may have kept her tears to herself, but performances like this allow a look at what really lay inside her heart.

James Gavin March 1994

James Gavin's profiles of jazz and pop music personalities appear in the New York Times, the Village Voice, and other publications.

#ella fitzgerald #ballads #james gavin #jazz

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bargainsleuthbooks · 2 years

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#GeorgeMichaelALife by #JamesGavin #NetGalley #ARCReview #BookReview #Wham! #June2022Release

Last year I read Andrew Ridgeley's autobiography and now there's a new book taking a deep dive into Wham! front man George Michael. #GeorgeMichaelALife by #JamesGavin #NetGalley #ARCReview #BookReview #Wham! #June2022Release #AbramsPress #Bookstagram

From Goodreads: “George Michael was an extravagantly gifted, openhearted soul singer whose work was both pained and smolderingly erotic. He was a songwriter of true craft and substance, and his music swept the world, starting in the mid-1980s. His fabricated image—that of a hypermacho sex god—loomed large in the pop culture of his day. It also hid—for a time—the secret he fought against…

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#1980&039;s Music #1980&039;s Television #1980&039;s #AIDS #Andrew Ridgeley #Aretha Franklin #Careless Whisper #Elton John #Faith #Father Figure #Freedom #Freedom90 #George Michael #George Michael: A Life #HIV #I Want Your Sex #James Gavin #Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go #Wham!

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empydoc · 2 months

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little things (headcanons) i think some of the boys do with a twist! they get angstier as you go!

this one's kinda long, but sfw ~

david, when surrounded by lots of people, will beeline for angel. crowds/meetings/etc, it doesn't matter. he's going to them.

honey likes to wash guy's hair in the shower, even after he makes several dirty shower jokes, because he goes quiet and enjoys it a lot more than they know he'd admit when they touch his hair.

elliott, when sitting beside sunshine, will squeeze their hand every so often. he always gets a squeeze back. the two always giggle to themselves when this happens.

asher has a lot of scars on his hands, whether that's from reckless behaviour or whatever else. babe used to avoid touching them, not knowing if he'd like it or not, but once they unintentionally ran their finger over the uneven skin and found it pretty theraputic to do. he's noticed they've started doing this a lot now, and likes it a whole lot.

as much as his spouse continues to tell him he doesn't have to, james loves to get them flowers. doesn't matter the day, the current season, or the holiday- if he's home late or feels like it, he's getting flowers.

sam subtly checks that darlin has enough food to the last the week, every week, just in case. they've been doing better at making sure they have enough for themselves, and he trusts them well, but it's become habit at this point.

in public places, avior holds onto starlight's arm or hand, making sure he's touching them or able to see them. he doesn't want to lose them again.

blake doesn't enjoy looking at himself in the mirror unless bestie is also seen in the reflection.

every so often gavin finds himself tracing over freelancer's features again and again, not wanting to forget them. they let him do this as much as he wants, always noticing a forlorn expression on him when he does.

vega's expression would always soften when he looked at warden. they noticed it the closer it got to his end. sometimes, it almost looked like he wanted to cradle their face, but they don't know that for sure. they couldn't ask him now even if they wanted to.

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sillykimiko · 2 months

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I got pissed, so I gave myself a 15 minute privilege to draw random things.

#shitpost #resident evil #leon s kennedy #pheonix wright #miles edgeworth #ace attorney #kristoph gavin #james sunderland #silent hill 2 #connor rk800 #detroit become human #sans undertale #chara undertale

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redactedasset · 2 months

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putting random redacted characters together and rate how well they could get along

everything is strictly platonic !!!!!

porter - geordi : 0%. geordi would get scared of porter tbh, he'd think the brit is a weirdo, would stay as far away as possible

hush - caelum : 50%. surprisingly well ngl! caelum would show hush how humans work and maybe bake cookies with each other? little dude would be terrified knowing what hush can do tho

blake - gavin : absolutely not %. you know how blake thinks of daemons. fight of the century. the gavin-vega fight is nothing compared to this.

morgan - james : 70%. pretty sure they'd try to save the world together, i can see trauma dumping sessions

anton - huxley : 90%. calm, cool guys. discussing being an earth elemental (bc of anton's love uskshsjzh)

guy - vega : 40%. these guys love using words no one understands.

avior - damien : 3%. "why is he so grumpy?" BOTH OF YOU ARE GRUMPY

camelopardalis - brachium : 100%. serenity daemon and ex serenity daemon talk would be so interesting holy SHITTTT

david - aggro : 30%. both furries /lh

#redacted audio #redacted asmr #redactedverse #redacted vega #redacted david #redacted guy #redacted hush #redacted gavin #redacted blake #redacted camelopardalis #redacted caelum #redacted brachium #redacted avior #redacted morgan #redacted james #redacted aggro #redacted anton #redacted huxley #redacted damien

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qhoaaaa · 2 months

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Perfect image to describe the Redacted fandom:

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burgerkingussy · 9 months

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when milo said “home isn’t what’s inside these walls, it’s what’s in my arms right now; it’s you” and when ollie said “you feel like…a relief to come home to” and when david said “i’m glad you’re back, now it’s home again” and when gavin said “it’s not just a city, it’s a home…you showed me that” and when sam said “you feel like home” and when avior said “you’ve made this hell into a heaven” and when james said “you are home” and when anton said “i want to be home with you” and when

#redacted asmr #redacted audio #redactedverse #redacted brainrot #redacted quotes #redacted milo #redacted ollie #redacted david #redacted gavin #redacted sam #redacted avior #redacted james #redacted anton

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thinkingofausername · 5 months

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Reblog and tag your characters

#jason todd #dick grayson #james potter #regulus black #remus lupin #gojo satoru #geto suguru #nanami kento #redacted gavin #redacted david #redacted vincent #redacted sam #redacted avior

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vind3miat0r · 9 days

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redactedverse twitter part YIPPEE

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anexistingexistence · 8 months

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Describing Redacted characters in one sentence or less (brackets don't count) but it gets progressively less comprehensive:

David: Big werewolf alpha dude (not the cringe kind)

Milo: Smol werewolf dude (the big kind)

Damien: Hot tsundere (literally)

Morgan: Non-existent

Guy: A heart-shaped pizza with all your favorite toppings that you can top yourself if you want-

Nick: Cat boi (definitely the cringe kind)

Ollie: Comfort food

Blake: Cold soup

Gavin: The reason I cry myself to sleep once a week

James: Needs to go tf home.

Asher: The canonical energizer bunny

Lasko: Me

Huxley: Me on anxiety meds

Caelum: Cotton candy given human form.

Anton: A testament to Erik's voice acting and general acting skills.

Marcus: Very killable.

Kody: Looks like great cake but actually went bad five months ago.

Elliott: Had an edible for breakfast and hasn't eaten since.

Hudson: Trying to eat serotonin with chopsticks.

Brachium: An edible pretending to be a gummy worm.

Vincent: Talks like what perfume tastes like.

Ivan: Saltwater in your eyes but it might just be your tears and you honestly don't even care at this point.

Aaron: Sand in your mouth and between your teeth but you're enjoying it.

Sam: If blankets could talk, they'd sound and speak like him.

Eric: That feeling you get when looking at an empty closet.

Camelopardalis: Anxiety meds in the form of a flesh prison.

Avior: If you unhinged your jaw, you could eat him.

Vega: You can drink him with a straw (and only with a straw).

Hush: You can eat him.

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assasinationbycarscoveredinhamrs · 5 days

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That one House MD poster with House, Cuddy and Wilson but being Phoenix (Disbarred), Kristoph, and Miles instead.

Do you see the vision?

#ace attorney #phoenix wright #beanix wright #krisnix #miles edgeworth #kristoph gavin #beanix wrightworth #narumitsu #Some day I will have the artistic skills to do it #house md #james wilson #lisa cuddy #gregory house

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hello-nichya-here · 2 months

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My love for MJ aside, speaking purely as someone who is looking into all the accusations against him and trying to be as unbiased as possible, it's CRAZY how the fans are labeled as being "in denial about the truth" when they are clearly correct in saying there's more than enough proof of his innocence.

Literally EVERYTHING is on Michael's side: eye-witnesses, videos, recorded phone calls, documents, and well-over a decade of FBI investigations, all of which contradict every single part of the stories about the supposed child abuse.

The proof of his innocence goes from "The pictures police took of Michael's genitals did not match the description the kid provided" to "This family that claims Michael kidnapped them and forced them to sell all their stuff, including their house, so they'd be dependent on him was confirmed to be lying since they still owned all the things they said they were forced to sell", all the way to "Michael wasn't even in the same country as the supposed victim at the time, and in fact, the very ROOM in which the the abuse allegedly happened did not even exist yet"

Not to mention proof that first "victim" (Jordan Chandler) was coerced by his abusive father into accusing Michael, that the family of the second "victim" (Gavin Arvizo) already having a history of scams that included lying about sexual abuse, and the Leaving Neverland documentary (that talks about the alledged abuse of James Safechuck and Wade Robson) was discovered to be copying an erotic book written by a confessed pedophile that wanted to share his fantasies about Michael abusing children.

Meanwhile all the people who say he was guilty have as proof is "Well, I saw an interview with the pedo that wrote that pornographic book and assumed it was true" or "I heard on a TV show 30 years ago that he was guilty and paid hush money to the victims and never checked that the investigation was still going and that the boy was even allowed to testify in court if he wanted to" or "This maid that was fired for stealing stuff from Michael's home claims she saw him molesting Jordan Chandler in Neverland - even though Jordan says he was abused during the tour, not in Neverland, so even if you were to believe his story you'd still have to assume this woman is lying."

It really is no wonder the 1993 and 2013 allegations did not even managed to get a proper trial with how little there was to work with, and the 2005 one led to Michael being found innocent of all charges in record time - I strongly suspect that if it wasn't for the former case, it wouldn't even have made it to court in the first place either with how nonsensical it was.

#michael jackson #mj innocent #michael jackson innocent #jordan chandler #gavin arvizo #james safechuck #wade robson #leaving neverland

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replaycamera2 · 8 months

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What Your Fave Redacted Character Says About You

Davey - You value a lot of things in a man: the most important being his ability to snap you in half.

Asher - You are the annoying younger sibling who is completely aware of exactly how much they can get away with via years of experience.

Milo - When people ask you what your hobbies are you say “reading” but the silent part of that answer is “fanfiction”

Vincent - I could go on for hours about all the parasocial relationships you’ve had in your life.

Sam - You’re rapidly running out of things other than yourself to blame for your problems, and honestly, it’s just a cry for help at this point.

Lasko - The people in your life have learned not to use the turn of phrase, “What’s the worst that could happen?” Because you will immediately launch into a 20 minute PowerPoint presentation with cited sources on exactly everything that could possibly go wrong.

Damien - Your parents were PTA terrorists. They were planning your bid for student council president while you were still in the womb.

Hux - For the people who think other people are always flirting with them or buttering them up, but they’re honestly just being nice and you never really learned how appropriately reciprocate that because life has taught you that everyone is always after something.

Gavin - God gave you depression and anxiety because if he didn’t, you’d be competing for his job

Avior - You’re either a burned out “gifted kid” or you only just got diagnosed with ADHD in your mid 20s. No in between.

Vega - Dear god do you love to be stepped on

Blake - You can not fix him. YOU CAN NOT FIX HIM.

Elliott - The ultimate fantasy of every demi-sexual out there.

Aaron - Depends: if you’re a straight woman, this is just everyone’s daddy fantasy. Otherwise, you’re a white gay guy. Only they would see a 1-to-1 recreation of their bully and go, “That is my husband.”

Ivan - I’m not saying you’re scary when you’re mad, I’m just saying the Venn diagram of people who have crossed you and the people you never hear from again is a circle

James - Admit it, you find degradation just a little bit hot. Just give in and go for it, it’ll be cathartic, trust me.

Anton - Literally that meme of “Thank you for changing my life.” “I’m literally a white man from Arizona mumbling and mouth-breathing into a mic.”

Geordi - “Patience of a saint” and “persistence of a rock” do not even begin to describe you. We have had nothing but radio silence from this man for 7 months.

Regulus - You just want someone to end your existence without actually killing you and honestly, valid take.

Guy - Your insecurities might scream at every person you meet, but not if you scream louder

Ollie - Your life moves from one disaster to the next and you are desperate for a shred of stability, which is probably why you’re listening to boyfriend role-play.

Morgan - There are two kinds of people in this fandom: Those who know what “19 months” means, and those who don’t.

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