Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook

It’s hardly a surprise that Ella Fitzgerald’s mid-50’s signing to the Verve label yielded such immediate, spectacular results: manager Norman Granz had built the imprint largely around her after dissatisfaction with the results from her long tenure at Decca. The successful multi-composer Songbook cycle that resulted contain some of the most elegant and satisfying recordings of her career. This 1956 tribute to Cole Porter launched both the series and the label, a project that saw Fitzgerald subdue her bristling bop jazz instincts somewhat in service of young arranger/conductor Buddy Bregman’s orchestral showcases of Porter’s epochal catalog, ranging from a lounge-spare “I Get a Kick Out of You” and the straightforward swing of “What is This Thing Called Love” to a rollicking “It’s De-Lovely and a suitably lush “Night and Day.” The Library of Congress eventually afforded the release one of its highest honors, inducting it into the National Recording Registry in 2003.