Oh Lady Be Good: Best of Gershwin Songbook
Ella recorded five LPs' worth of Gershwin tunes for her songbook series, which was frankly a little much, so this single disc skims the cream. These songs are the ur-texts of American pre-war pop, straightforward love songs made to flow off a singer's tongue, and here they're in the hands of a master. Nelson Riddle's arrangements tend toward the soupy side--the bombastic string sections are distinctly nonjazz--but Ella, as always, sings with absolute taste and authority. She doesn't seem to be living inside the lyrics the way she does with, say, the Cole Porter songbook, but the simplicity of the Gershwins' melodies and sentiments let her get across some gently nuanced, technically exquisite singing.--Douglas Wolk