The second of her celebrated song books albums and heralded as one of the best vocal jazz albums ever made, Ella and arranger/conductor Buddy Bregman began work on the Rodgers and Hart sessions three months after the release of her Cole Porter Songbook. Like its predecessor, it features the cream of West Coast session musicians, many of whom graced the fabulous recordings that Frank Sinatra was making around the same time in the same studio. Maynard Ferguson (trumpet), Milt Bernhart (trombone), Herb Geller, and Ted Nash and Bud Shank (reeds), Barney Kessel (guitar), & Alvin Stoller (drums). The album is full of standards that everyone knows and loves, but in Ella’s hands these songs become even more special. Standouts include “There’s a Small Hotel,” “You Took Advantage of Me,” and the perennial, “My Funny Valentine.”

Verve’s Acoustic Sounds Series features transfers from analog tapes and remastered 180-gram vinyl in deluxe gatefold packaging.

Tracklist

LP 1
Side A
1. Have You Met Miss Jones?
2. You Took Advantage of Me
3. A Ship Without a Sail
4. To Keep My Love Alive
5. Dancing on the Ceiling
6. The Lady Is a Tramp
7. With a Song in My Heart
8. Manhattan

Side B
1. Johnny One Note
2. I Wish I Were in Love Again
3. Spring Is Here
4. It Never Entered My Mind
5. This Can't Be Love
6. Thou Swell
7. My Romance
8. Where or When
9. Little Girl Blue

 
LP 2
Side C
1. Give It Back to the Indians
2. Ten Cents a Dance
3. There's a Small Hotel
4. I Didn't Know What Time It Was
5. Ev'rything I've Got
6. I Could Write a Book
7. The Blue Room
8. My Funny Valentine

Side D
1. Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered
2. Mountain Greenery
3. Wait Till You See Him
4. Lover
5. Isn't It Romantic?
6. Here in My Arms
7. Blue Moon
8. My Heart Stood Still
9. I've Got Five Dollars