New albums available for download at Verve

The Verve Music Group has been digitally releasing Out Of Print titles for download! Here is your chance to re-acquaint yourself with some of the rare treasures of jazz!
CLICK HERE TO KNOW MORE

Diana Krall's concerts tour

10/23/2004 Diana Krall Casino Espinho
Oporto, Portugal

10/25/2004 Diana Krall ICC
Berlin, Germany

10/27/2004 Diana Krall Kongresshaus [(+41) 1 206 36 36]
Zurich, Switzerland

10/28/2004 Diana Krall Teatro Smeraldo
Milan, ITALY

10/30/2004 Diana Krall Zenith [03.83.93.27.00]
Nancy, France

10/31/2004 Diana Krall Zenith
Lille, France

11/2/2004 Diana Krall M.E.N.
Manchester, UK

11/4/2004 Diana Krall Royal Albert Hall
London, United Kingdom

11/5/2004 Diana Krall Royal Albert Hall
London, United Kingdom

11/7/2004 Diana Krall Royal Albert Hall
London, United Kingdom

11/9/2004 Diana Krall NIA Academy
Birmingham, UK

11/11/2004 Diana Krall Musikteatret
Vejile, Denmark

11/12/2004 Diana Krall Falconer
Copenhagen, Denmark

11/14/2004 Diana Krall Concert House
Oslo, Norway

11/18/2004 Diana Krall Concert House
Stavanger, Norway

11/19/2004 Diana Krall Lisaberg
Gothenburg, Sweden

11/20/2004 Diana Krall Hovet
Stockholm, Sweden

11/23/2004 Diana Krall Konzerthaus
Vienna, Austria

11/24/2004 Diana Krall Konzerthaus
Vienna, Austria

11/25/2004 Diana Krall Salzburg Arena
Salzburg, Austria

11/27/2004 Diana Krall Casino
Divonne-les-Bains, FRANCE

11/29/2004 Diana Krall Concertgebouw
Amsterdam, Holland

11/30/2004 Diana Krall Forest National
Brussels, Belgium

12/2/2004 Diana Krall Philharmonie
Munich, GERMANY

12/3/2004 Diana Krall Jahrhunderthalle
Frankfurt, Germany

12/4/2004 Diana Krall Grugahalle
Essen, GERMANY

12/5/2004 Diana Krall CCH
Hamburg, GERMANY

12/7/2004 Diana Krall Congress Hall
Warsaw, Poland

12/8/2004 Diana Krall Lucerna
Prague, Czech Republic

12/9/2004 Diana Krall Congress Center
Budapest, Hungary

12/13/2004 Diana Krall Auditorio
Tenerife, Canary Islands

12/14/2004 Diana Krall Auditorio Alfredo Kraus
Gran Canaria, Spain

Hello, Love on CD

Here we have the USA and European reissue of Fitzgerald’s 1960 album release Hello, Love. This is the first time that this album is brought out on CD, except for a 1990s Japanese issue, which was the only chance for us to get hold of the music. A few tracks, however, were issued as bonus tracks on the CD issue of Like Someone In Love.

The track list is familiar to all of us; Fitzgerald sings You Go To My Head, Willow Weep For Me, I’m Through With Love, Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year, Everything Happens To Me, Lost In A Fog, I’ve Grown Accustomed To His Face, I’ll Never Be The Same, So Rare, Tenderly, Stairway To The Stars, and Moonlight In Vermont.

<>These songs were recorded during multiple sessions. On July 24, 1957 and on October 28, 1957 Ella recorded songs with Frank DeVol, some issued on Like Someone In Love, and the album was completed on March 25, 1959.

During this 1959 recording set, Ella sang I’m Through With Love. Together with the July 1957 recorded Stairway To The Stars this song was issued on a 45rpm single. This record was advertised with the following advertisement of April 20, 1959 (from The Billboard). It says “Ella Fitzgerald – the hottest vocalist of them all sings the two hottest tunes… from the hottest motion picture ‘Some Like It Hot’.”

<>

This is not totally coincidental. Billy Wilder was making his film Some Like It Hot in 1958 and 1959, starring Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon as two musicians who have to escape for the mafia and disguise themselves as women to work in the orchestra of which Marilyn Monroe is the girl singer. And indeed, Monroe sings I’m Through With Love, but the other song on Ella’s single, Stairway To The Stars, is only used as instrumental background music in the picture.

While Billy Wilders film was very successful, Ella released this single with ‘songs from the picture’, which don’t have anything to do with the picture after all, in fact, these two songs are just songs which were still in stock for Ella. A commercial move.

<>So far the technical details. Now it’s time for the music – it’s Ella at the height of her career, with a top-notch orchestra led by Frank DeVol, issued in a time in which this music was not old-fashioned. During the sixties, in the public opinion this music became out-dated, as we can see when we look at the more temporary recordings of ‘Misty Blue’. It is quite surprising that the newer ‘Misty Blue’ album is seen as old-fashioned these days, while ‘Hello, Love’ is regarded as timeless…

Still, this album remains not too well-known. In my view that is because this album only confirms what fans already knew; that Ella was the best singer of popular music and jazz. This album is not really something new after the Songbooks, or after Like Someone In Love, which also mainly contained standards, so after all it doesn’t add anything to what people knew about Ella’s abilities.

<>To get to the point: this album is, even 45 years after it’s recording, still not really out of date. Ella sings in her best voice the most beautiful arranged songs, just ballads, and moves me every time I hear her sing I’m Through With Love and makes me swing very lightly when I listen to her singing Willow Weep For Me.

It is not spectacular like Ella’s live recordings, but it is stunning all the same.

I'm Thru With Love / Stairway To The Stars

Verve Singles Vol. 2 for 2005

According to Bryan Koniartz, the producer of the forthcoming, but retired, second volume of Verve Singles of Ella, the new set will be out in 2005, though he couldn't tell me a precise date...