Ella Fitzgerald - Live In San Francisco

TrackListing:
01 - Hey Jude - 03:49 (John Lennon, Paul MacCartney)
02 - Sunshine Of Your Love - 03:18 (Jack Bruce, Pete Brown, Eric Clapton)
03 - This Girl's In Love With You - 04:25 (Burt Bacharach, Hal David)
04 - Watch What Happens - 03:56 (Michel Legrand, Norman Gimbel)
05 - All Right, Ok, You Win - 03:45 (Mayme Watts, Sid Wyche)
06 - Give Me The Simple Life - 02:00 (Herman "Harry" Ruby, Rube Bloom)
07 - Useless Landscape (Inùtil Paisagem) - 05:07 (Antonio Carlos Jobim, Ray Gilbert, Aloysio De Oliveira)
08 - Old Devil Moon - 04:17 (Burton Lane, Edgar Yipsel Harburg)
09 - Don'cha Go 'Way Mad - 03:33 (Jimmy Mundy, Jean Baptiste Illinois Jacquet, Al Stillman)
10 - A House Is Not A Home - 04:10 (Burt Bacharach, Hal David)
11 - Trouble Is A Man - 04:10 (Alex Wilder)
12 - Love You Madly - 03:03 (Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington)


Playing Time: 00:46:00


Notes & Personnel:


Recorded at Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco, 1968
Tracks 1-6 Ernie Hecksher's Big Band
Track 7-12 Tommy Flanagan Trio


Ella Fitzgerald - Vocals
Tommy Flanagan - Piano
Frank DeLaRosa - Bass
Ed Thigpen - Drums
Frank DeVol - Arranger, Conductor.
Ernie Heckscher - Arranger, Conductor.
Wally Heider - Engineer

Notes: Sunshine of Your Love is a live 1969 (see 1969 in music) album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, with a Big Band arranged and conducted by Frank DeVol and Ernie Heckscher. This album is another keystone in Ella's many recorded attempts at more 'contemporary' material. Many discs that she cut from her Pre-Verve years were throwaway novelty singles, and her Verve years spent helping others acknowledge the Great American Songbook as a leading musical art form, but this album, recorded at the end of her tenure with Verve, represents the desire that Ella felt to still remain 'hip', in an ever changing musical landscape, ableit one in which she had always had a place.


Product Description: Live In San Francisco -- Jazz Club (aka Sunshine Of Your Love). Very cool, very groovy, and one of Ella Fitzgerald's hippest albums of the 60s! The set was recorded in San Francisco in the late 60s, but was issued by MPS in Germany as proof that the label always had an ear for bringing something different out of a mainstream artist. And although live, the album's got a romping, hard grooving style that's filled with plenty of soul -- arranged surprisingly by Tommy Flanagan, with a bouncing, bottom-end groove that even gets a bit funky at times! The centerpiece of the album is Ella's funky cover of the title cut -- Cream's big hit "Sunshine Of Your Love" -- proof that even an old gal can get funky with the right material! Other tracks include "This Girl's In Love With You", "Watch What Happens", "House Is Not A Home", and "Hey Jude".

Review: One side of this album is devoted to the permanent trio, led by Tommy Flanagan, that accompanies Ella on her forays throughout the world. Flanagan is not only the best pianist around for accompanying singers, but is in his own right a great soloist, certainly among the top half-dozen jazz pianists. This, I might add, is not only my opinion, but also the judgment of musicians who have worked with him. The rest of the trio consists of Ed Thigpen on drums, who for years was with the Oscar Peterson Trio, and a very promising newcomer from the West Coast, Frank de la Rosa, on bass. The big band charts have Ella accompanied by a band, the nucleus of which is the Ernie Heckscher Band, and Heckscher, who is a fixture at the Fairmont Hotel's Venetian Room is just about the best orchestra of that genre around. The orchestra was augmented by a fabulous lead trumpet player, Allen Smith, and the rhythm section remained the Tommy Flanagan Trio.