Ella Fitzgerald's first Songbook album is the definitive reading of Rodgers and Hart's catalogue. Norman Granz gave her the right band, the right arranger, and the right studio. The result is a masterclass in phrasing, tone, and emotional intelligence that still sounds like the gold standard sixty-seven years later.
It starts with a trumpet and a snare brush, and then she opens her mouth. The first word of “Have You Met Miss Jones?” lands like a perfectly tossed coin into a fountain — clear, inevitable, and gone before you can say how it got there. Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers and Hart Songbook is not a debut, not a concept, not a reinvention. It is a settling of accounts. Rodgers and Hart wrote some of the most cunning melodies in the American theatre, and Ella Fitzgerald, by 1956, had earned the right to sing them exactly the way she wanted.
Norman Granz knew what he was doing. He had already recorded Ella with Louis Armstrong and the Oscar Peterson trio, but the Songbook series was his masterstroke. Record the definitive American songwriters with the definitive singer. Give her a full orchestra, a sympathetic arranger, and the best session players in Los Angeles. Let the songs speak for themselves.
Buddy Bregman had the unenviable job of arranging these tunes for an orchestra that included names like Barney Kessel on guitar, Joe Mondragon on bass, and Alvin Stoller on drums. The pianists were Paul Smith and Jimmy Rowles — a murderers’ row of West Coast jazz royalty. They tracked at Capitol Studios in Hollywood, the same room where Sinatra and Nat Cole had cut their own masterpieces. The room’s famous echo chamber gave Ella’s voice a warmth that microphone placement alone could never achieve.
And what a voice. By 1956, Ella had already survived the Chick Webb years, the Dizzy Gillespie bebop experiments, and the first great wave of Verve solo records. But this album reveals something different: a singer willing to disappear into the song. There is no showboating, no scat for scat’s sake, no “look what I can do.” When she arrives at “My Funny Valentine,” she treats it not as a standard but as a letter — intimate, slightly bruised, in full possession of the room.
The session logs show they cut two or three songs per date. No marathon sessions, no endless takes. Granz believed in capturing the first or second pass, when the musicians were still discovering the arrangement. The result is an album that breathes. “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” unfolds at a tempo that feels conversational; you can almost hear the orchestra leaning into her phrasing. “The Lady Is a Tramp” struts with a swagger that the later Sinatra version would borrow heavily from.
The Architecture of the Songbook
Granz’s idea was simple: one composer or lyricist per album, a full set of songs that told a story through the sheer weight of quality writing. Rodgers and Hart gave Ella 32 tracks across two LPs. That’s almost two hours of music. The format forced the listener to engage with the material as a body of work, not just a collection of singles. It was a hifi-era concept — sit down, pour a drink, and let the needle ride from side A to side D.
The engineering on these sessions is exceptionally clean. Val Valentin, the director of recording for Verve, oversaw the mastering. The original mono pressings have a centered, vocal-forward balance that modern stereo remasters often smear with reverb. If you can find an original Verve MG V-4002 mono pressing, you’ll hear Ella’s mouth shape each vowel with a clarity that digital transfers tend to blur.
There is a moment on “I Could Write a Book” where the band drops out for four bars and she sings alone, just her voice and the room’s natural decay. That four seconds is worth the price of the entire set.
Among the sidemen, guitarist Barney Kessel deserves special mention. His comping behind Ella on “This Can’t Be Love” is a lesson in secondary voicings and rhythmic patience. He never steps on her syllables; he cushions them. The interplay between Kessel’s electric guitar and Ella’s voice on “Spring Is Here” is about as delicate as recorded music gets.
This album was a gamble. In 1956, the idea of a singer devoting two full LPs to a single songwriting team had no precedent. But Granz understood that the music would outlive the format. He was right. Decades later, when audiophiles argue about what constitutes a reference vocal recording, they invariably land on one of three albums: Sinatra’s Only the Lonely, Baker’s Chet, or this. The others are all fine. Ella’s is the one you reach for when you need to remember what a human voice can actually do when it has nothing to prove.
What makes the Rodgers and Hart Songbook different from Ella Fitzgerald's other Songbook albums?
It was the first one, recorded before the series became a formula. The arrangements by Buddy Bregman feel more intimate and less orchestral than later entries like the Cole Porter or Duke Ellington sets. There is a warmth and spontaneity that later albums sometimes polished into smoothness.
Which version of this album should I buy on vinyl?
The original 1956 Verve mono pressing (MG V-4002) is the one to chase. It has a direct, centered vocal — Ella's voice sits exactly between the speakers with no artificial stereo spread. The later Verve reissues from the 1960s are decent, but avoid the 1990s 'Verve Master Edition' pressings, which add reverb.
Did Ella Fitzgerald write any of the songs on this album?
No. All songs are by composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Lorenz Hart. Ella was an interpreter, not a writer. What she did was take their already brilliant material and find new emotional shades in it through phrasing, dynamics, and timing — something few other singers have matched.