Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie!
This early '60s studio session captures Ella Fitzgerald moving toward  the smaller, more pointedly jazz-inflected ensembles that would shape her career  in her final decades.  After the lush orchestrations of her classic series of  composer songbooks, which found her collaborating with the best arrangers, the  intimate scale and easy interplay of a crack band provide a wonderful platform  for the spirited performances here. That Ella herself savored the opportunity is  reflected in a program that includes Thelonious Monk's "After  Midnight" and a breezy, potent ride through the Charlie Parker/Dizzy  Gillespie anthem, "Night In Tunisia." With a mix of bona fide  standards and revived swing classics, this is a rediscovered gem, cause enough  to clap hands.--Sam Sutherland