Was Ella Fitzgerald As Nice As She Seemed?

[DMP]

Ella always seemed polite, courteous, gracious - is that the way she was?

[Christiern]

I only met her about 3 times and that's how she came across to me. More telling is, perhaps, that I never heard a disparaging word about her--and I hear a lot over the years!

[Chuck Nessa]

Same here, though I only met her once.

[DMP]

Thanks to both of you! And i'm happy to hear it. Now, what's the story with Carmen McRae...

[ValerieB]

Ella was a real lady and actually rather shy. and very soft-spoken and sweet.

[Christiern]

Carmen McRae? I'm sure she had her pleasant side, but I only experienced the other one.

[ValerieB]

from what i experienced with Carmen, she was nice rarely and with few people. she seemed like one of the angriest people i've ever encountered. when she was "nice," she still had an "edge". and she treated many of her musicians with great disrespect. the way i felt about her sadly interfered with my enjoyment of her immense talent.

[Larry Kart]

AND-- Carmen McRae was about 10,000 times the artist Ella was... i can be empathetic towards E's personality-- & her personal-- issues but beyond that... only the Duke set is even half-fucking-tolerable of the 'songs'... whereas even Carmen's most 'product'-like recording pushes something & blows the living crap outta everything a 'nice' turd like Tony Bennett squeezed out. i think Carmen just knew her own damn worth whatever white had to say-- & even if white helped her sometimes too. that some of the white who deserved better got caught in the spray well... ya'll can handle it.

Carmen McRae!!

& Sammy Davis Jr >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Kendra Shank too (hardee har har)

I can't take much McRae after her Decca days, too much self-regarding spin on the ball. Maybe the dividing line for me is her Columbia Billie Holiday tribute album from 1961, a fine date in many ways (Lockjaw!) but McRae's singing is beginning to verge on the studied and near-rigid, though one could understand why a Holiday tribute album might put any singer of standing and ego on edge. Based on seeing her in clubs a few times, I felt that one of McRae's problems was that she basically hated standing at the mike -- the female-object aspect of that, perhaps. When she sat down at the piano and accompanied herself (the way she'd started out, and she was a good pianist), she seemed to be an entirely different and much happier person.

Ella, by contrast, could be said to put too little spin on the ball in terms of interpretation and personality, but once recognized (and it took me a while) the basic interior musical qualities of her singing -- tone, time, and timbre -- are marvelous. As for story-telling, late in her career, when her chops began to falter a bit, she could break your heart. (There are few Pablo albums that capture that.) Can't stand her scat singing.

About Mr. Bennett, we've heard that song before, but I ask you or anyone else to track down the reissued stuff he did (originally on his own label in the 1970s) with Ruby Braff and George Barnes. Listen to "Lover" in particular; it's a great performance -- the execution of course but also the conception. TB sings it sotto voce as though, a la the lyric, the words literally were being addressed to a woman with whom he's dancing. TB after his MTV "return," not so much.