An excellent way to GET HAPPY!

This CD is a wonderful collection of upbeat songs sung by one of the best singers ever, Ella Fitzgerald. She does not disappoint us with this set of songs. We hear "You Make Me Feel So Young," "Blue Skies," "Beat Me, Daddy, Eight To The Bar," "Gypsy In My Soul," "Goody-Goody," A-Tisket, a-tasket" as well as several more songs. The CD version of this album includes a previously unissued alternate take of "Swingin' Shepherd Blues," a great added plus. Listeners will be interested to know that "A-Tisket, a-tasket" is sung to a Latin beat; much earlier on Fitzgerald sang this song a more traditional way in the 1941 Abbott and Costello movie Ride 'Em Cowboy.



Although this may or may not be her best album ever by the critics' standards, I highly recommend this CD. The sound quality is excellent and the liner notes reproduce the original record album back cover faithfully. It certainly made me feel happy to listen to it!

Good Songs, Well Sung

This is a nice collection of good standards culled from a number of separate sessions and collated into this one compilation album.

Many of the songs are taken from Fitzgerald's famous songbook sessions and feature arrangements from the likes of Paul Weston ("Irving Berlin") and Nelson Riddle ("George and Ira Gershwin"). The material is consistently good, arrangements well-crafted and Ella's singing - as always - is superb. These tracks will make a welcome addition to any music lovers collection.

The only weakness to this CD is that it doesn't work so well as an album in an aethestic sense, they are simply a miscellany of items that don't fit anywhere else. The other downside is that some of the tracks (the wonderful Nelson Riddle arranged pieces) have appeared previosuly elsewhere, so on a collection with only a few tracks this makes a sizeable proportion of the whole collection.

This is a nice CD worth buying. It is just not essential.

get happy

this cd holds a special place in my heart,it was my 50th ella fitzgerald cd and she did not dissapoint.all of the performances are so good that i can't choose a favorite.her singing is so wonderful that i am still stunned and thrilled even after 50 plus cds.the collection of songs consist of a fine selection of jazz and pop standards done with a variety of arrangers and accompanists.if you want to hear the best of the best at the peak of incredible powers, get this one.