Looking for something a little different when shopping for
\nChristmasmusic? Then you might want to try
\nElla Wishes You A Swinging Christmas<\/i>, and add a little hot
\njazz to your festivities. Ella Fitzgerald and the Frank DeVol
\nOrchestra run through many of the popular Christmas songs such as
\n“White Christmas” and “Winter Wonderland” as well as selections for
\nchildren (of all ages) such as “Rudolph, The Red Nose Reindeer” and
\nFrosty The Snowman”.<\/p>\n
The first song, “Jingle Bells”, is certainly an ear-opener
\nplayed at a fast tempo, and with singing not quite in full scat
\nmode but adding improvisional lyrics. I wouldn’t say this is my
\nfavorite renditon of the song, but I have to admit it lives up to
\nthe “Swinging Christmas” tag.<\/p>\n
More successful is the second song, “Santa Claus Is Coming To
\nTown”,which swings fine but at a slightly slower tempo. This is a
\nnicer balance of a jazzed up arrangement with some surprises, while
\nat the same time keeping more with the essence of the song.<\/p>\n
Next comes Fitzgerald’s rendition of “Have Yourself A Merry
\nLittle Christmas”. This is done more faithfully as the midtempo
\nballad we are more familiar in hearing, and puts her beautiful
\nvoice to great use. The rest of the CD alternates between faithful
\nrenditions like this one, and the more swinging kind of “Santa
\nClaus Is Coming To Town”.<\/p>\n
However, there is a wild card in the middle of the CD called
\n“Good Morning Blues”. This song, which was co-written by Count
\nBasie, gives us a taste of Fitzgerald’s blues singing, but is
\nplayed at a tempo that keeps it from being downbeat. I could
\nimagine Ray Charles really tearing this one up.<\/p>\n
The one other little known song on this collection is called
\n“What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”. Although this is a pretty
\nnumber, it sticks out because it is the only melancholy song here.
\nIt is not outright depressing, but the bittersweet feeling would
\nhave fit better on a more adult collection of holiday songs.<\/p>\n
Overall,
\nElla Wishes You A Swinging Christmas<\/i> is a nice addition to
\nyour Christmas music collection. The singing is great, and the band
\nis top-notch collectively and when providing the occasional short,
\ntasteful solo. The arrangements provide an interesting take on
\nfamily favorites without losing sight of the holiday spirit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":26058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6675],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-37269","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-ella-fitzgerald","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37269"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37269"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}