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Even a novice like me can recognize the excellence in this live recording. The other reviews on this page speak to specific elements such as Ella's incredible musicality and the excellent musicians on the recording, but I'll just say that it's my favorite Ella recording ever.

Ella at the top of her form

simply beautiful and inspired. Ella is tops!

A Second Great concert

This was Ella at her best...', yes, we know that talk. But this is really one of the great Fitzgerald concerts. Her interpretations of these songs are so great, I couldn't imagine anyone else doing them so well. On the first song, `give me the simple life', you can hear she didn't bother warming up for the show, but that's no problem as you can hear. After that more of her standard repertoire of those days, `Cheek to Cheek', `Caravan', a funny `you're driving me crazy' (which she sings here in English, but she recorded later in 1961 a version in German... and her pronouncing isn't flawless on that), and a wonderful `anything goes'. The best part of the concert are the songs from `Misty' to the encore. I think she performed Misty best when she was on stage instead of a studio, because I think this version is better than the studio version on `Intimate Ella'. Misty is followed by Mr. Paganini, of which her later May 1961 version became a hit. Then `Mack the Knife', on which she had learned the lyrics this time. As Ella later recalled on an 1968 interview, the reason they did Mack the Knife at first in 1960 was because the man who had booked Ella there asked her to do this popular song. She didn't know the lyrics then, but she thought they could have a ball anyway. And they did! Years afterwards, until the late 60s, Ella was still asked to do this song.
`Round Midnight is a wonderful improvised version, the best she did I think.
Ella does her best scatting on `Joe Williams' Blues', a song she had `written' herself. As her fans know, she started doing the song with JATP in 1956. Then she sang (improvised?) lyrics, referring to Elvis Presley and his `blue suede shoes' and so on. This song developed trough the years to this 1961 version on which she gets rid of Elvis Presley and refers to Dinah Washington and others. A latter-day version of this song is `Any old Blues', on the album `At the Newport jazz festival Carnegie hall 1973', but this 1961 version is the best, I tried to sing it the way she does but I can't keep up, so don't try that at home.
The encore is `this Can't Be Love', with the Oscar Peterson quartet, which is great.
One more thing: `Second half' doesn't mean that Ella did her first part of the concert in 1960, than waited a year and returned in 1961, but it means the first half of the concert was the part of the Peterson trio, and the second of Ella.
In 1961 she had to sang very much, it was a tiring year for Ella, and her best live recordings were made in Berlin, and not in Hollywood. Here her voice sounds fresh, and in Hollywood she sounds is she has a bit of a cold o something.
And yes, this is a top-recording! It's a pity it wasn't released till 1989 and I had to buy it abroad because it isn't available in Holland, but it certainly is worth buying!